VZP Success!!!

We all are finally covered by the Czech national health insurance!! Getting Sofia covered was the last step. I brought her to Motol (a different hospital from where we went before) because she needed to have her heart checked since she had an innocent murmur. Motol has the appropriate testing euipmet for children so that is where we went. I thought the process would be more difficult at Motol since it seemed to me to be a much more Czech oriented hospital. I was pleasantly surprised when everyone was really helpful. We arrived at the hospital and I didn't see any signs for foreigner check in so I just decided to go to the pediatrics area. I got to a waiting room and asked someone there is they knew where the pediatrics department was and they told me to take a number. (this was really all done without words since the woman didn't speak English.) I took a number and waited my turn. I got to the window and found out I was in the wrong place and was told to go down stairs. I went downstairs and a nurse brought me to the pediatrics department. Luckily one of the doctors was behind the check-in desk and he spoke English. I was told to go back upstairs to the foreigners check in and then come back down with the appropriate paperwork. The doctor gave me some basic directions to the foreigners check-in and I headed back upstairs. The foreigners desk actually spoke English very well which was a surprise. We filled out the paperwork and brought the appropriate paperwork back down to pediatrics and waited our turn. The nurse came out and got us and we went back into a room with the echo cardiogram machine. I thought that Fi would flip when I saw all the things that were going to be attached to her but she did great. There was a clip on both ankles and both wrists as well as 6 suction things to her chest. We pretended that it was an octopus which she thought was funny. After that was done we went and waited the the waiting room for the doctor. The doctor came and got us and we went into a room with an ultrasound machine. Fi was a little unsure at first but when I told her that she was lucky to be able to see her heart when even mommy and daddy haven't seen their own hearts she thought it was pretty neat. After those tests the doctor told us what we already knew - that Fi was fine and there was nothing wrong with her heart. Kids her age get innocent murmurs that mean nothing. We then headed back upstairs with our paperwork to check out at the foreigners desk. The woman was very nice and she told me should would write up the invoice. We waited and then she came over and told me that the echo was going to cost about 400Kc but the other test (the ultrasound) was very expensive. I was thinking, great there goes another $1,000 - $2,000USD since an Ultrasound in the US would be that expensive. She then proceeded to tell me it was 2000Kc. I looked very serious and said that it was OK. It was all I could do to not show a big sign of relief since 2000Kc is about $100USD. If she only knew how expensive these things were in the US she never would have been concerned. (Not that I really wanted to part with $100USD either). I went directly to VZP on Friday to drop off the results and was told to come back on Monday. I went back today and paid for Sofia's coverage. Now we can rest assured that we have health insurance. Now I just have to find a pediatrician and schedule and appointment for the girls shots.