Hospitalization in Aix

You’re obviously from the US if you anticipate a hefty bill, for a hospital stay. England has socialized medicine. France has what might be described as an equivalent to an expanded Medicare, with private insurance for enhanced options, but I would not characterize it as what England has. Medical costs are generally in line with what you would expect Medicare to pay.

Anticipate your ultimate expense to be very reasonable, but not free.

I wouldn't stress about it. My guess is that it's just taking some time for all of the paperwork to be processed. My mother had surgery and was hospitalized for a week in Belgium about 20 years ago. I recall that it took a bit of time for everything to get transmitted to our travel insurance company. When we eventually saw the final bill, we were shocked at the very modest amount compared to US medical costs. And FYI, the travel insurance covered the entire thing 100%, including follow up care for the injury for one year. Of course your policy may be different in some regards, but I wouldn't worry. Just keep monitoring the situation as you are doing.

I don't recall hearing about European medical establishments directly billing US insurance companies. I suppose it could happen, but I'd expect any bill to go to you--if there is one. My only experience with the French medical establishment was a trip to a doctor's office for a rough case of bronchitis plus (I guess) pink eye (25 euros paid to the doctor at time of service) and two or three prescriptions (also about 25 euros paid by me to the pharmacy). I didn't even bother to file an insurance claim when I returned home.

Other experiences in Slovenia (mine) and Greece (my mother's) involved being handed an invoice for procedures performed and medicines administered. The amounts were reasonable (shockingly so in Greece). We both paid before leaving the building and filed insurance claims after returning home. My mother's insurance company wanted a translation of the invoice, so I took care of that before we left Greece, at a small fraction of the cost of having it done in the US. My insurance company (Blue Cross/Blue Shield) accepted an invoice in Slovenian, bless them. Both companies reimbursed us quite promptly, covering about 90% of our expenses, as I recall.

Speaking of this, today, listening to NPR radio, they had "Medical Bill of the Month". American ex-pat living in Switzerland with a Swiss healthcare plan, comes back to the US to attend a wedding. Before the wedding, gets a gut ache after dinner, eventually ends up in the emergency room and has to have an emergency appendectomy. 14 hours later is discharged, gets to the wedding, then home to Switzerland. 6 months later he gets a bill from the hospital for $42,000. About 10 times what the same procedure would cost in Switzerland.

Don't be surprised if it takes up to six months.

Centre Hospitalier sounds like a public hospital, rather than a private, so the costs will be contained to the maximum. Single room or double will make a difference of about 15€ a day.
It won't be anything like the US. Nothing hefty

The bill will show up. You won't get sued. Very glad you are better.

I was in the hospital for 4 nights for surgery on a broken elbow in Menton. The hospital had a list of charges in their business office and my travel insurance paid them directly. The cost was X Euros a day for a medical patient like you and Y dollars a day for a surgical patient like me. This covered everything -- no separate anesthesia fee, or med fee, or surgeons fee. My only cost was 15 Euro for Fiberglass tape for the cast; they plaster cast but my husband was told he could go to the pharmacy and get a roll of fiberglass and they would use that if we wanted.

The daily fees about 6 years ago were about 900 Euro a day for everything. Our total bill was around $4000. So I would guess given the length of your stay you are looking at, with inflation, a bill under just $15000. In the US an 11 stay would be pushing bankruptcy territory -- not so for a visitor to France. Your insurance company should be dealing with the hospital for you. While they have socialized medicine, it is not free for visitors although their ERs will often treat minor things like a cut without charging -- we alas have experience with that as well -- my husband's pompier ride to the hospital and stitches were not billed.

Just an FYI: it's not free for us in the system either, but it would be too complicated to explain the details. Tocard gave a rough idea.

So not too long ago there was a similar story on Tripadvisor and it took over a year before the person got the bill. It was not a huge bill was a couple thousand dollars maybe but it did take over a year. Apparently they are not in a big hurry to get bills out. I wouldn’t worry about it. They will bill you when they get around to it..

There was another thread recently regarding a hospital visit in France, and it took them a few months to recieve the bill. https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/france/interesting-billing-system-at-a-paris-emergency-room

So you, or your insurance company, will get a bill, but it will be reasonable.

A plug for travel insurance here. We never bought it when we were working because my corporate health insurance covered emergency care overseas and in my case even flight back if necessary. We don't care about luggage coverage and such -- insurance is for the huge costs like air ambulance. Eventually we bought a Medjet Assist policy that only covers air ambulance or other means of return to home hospital since we wanted to make sure my husband was covered for that as we aged. Once retired we bought policies from Allianz. They paid our hospital directly and then reimbursed me about $500 for physical therapy, x-ray and orthopedic follow up costs in Paris when I had to have surgery in Menton. This saved them the money of shipping me home and saved the last 5 weeks of my trip. They were excellent. We now have an annual policy with Allianz -- which we have never tested and hope not to but our experience with the trip policy gives us confidence they will cover whatever occurs.