🇬🇷 Athens · Healthcare
Doctors, insurance and emergencies in Athens
AMKA is the number the whole system runs on, and registering a named personal doctor through gov.gr is what opens routine care and referrals.
The thing people get wrongWithout an AMKA the health system cannot see you, and without a registered personal doctor routine primary care has no starting point. Both are registrations rather than appointments, and both are worth doing in the first weeks.
AMKA and e-EFKA
AMKA is the social security number, held in a national registry run by IDIKA and published at amka.gr, whose call centre is 111 31 or +30 213 216 8100. e-EFKA is the single social security body behind it: it runs an online tool for finding which fund you belong to, handles contribution registration for the self-employed and non-salaried, and issues the insurance clearance certificate that proves your contributions are current. How a new arrival is covered in the gap before registration completes could not be verified for this guide, so ask e-EFKA rather than assume you are already covered.
The personal doctor
Greece runs a personal doctor scheme: you register with a named GP through the gov.gr service, and that registration is the gateway to referrals and routine primary care. Registration is how the system assigns you, which is why turning up to see a particular doctor is not how it works. Do the registration before you need it.
EOPYY, prescriptions and records
EOPYY is the national organisation for health services: it holds your health insurance folder, contracts the doctors, pharmacies and diagnostic centres you can use at public rates, and runs prescription and high-cost medicine distribution. Its services for insured people sit online at eservices.eopyy.gov.gr, covering the insurance folder, contracted provider and pharmacy searches, medicine and high-cost medicine lookups, and appointments with EOPYY doctors. Registering a personal doctor is a gov.gr service rather than an EOPYY one, so do not go looking for it here. Prescriptions run through the national system at e-prescription.gr and records through the National Electronic Health Record at ehealthrecord.gov.gr, so a pharmacy needs your AMKA rather than a piece of paper.
What is actually open tonight
The Ministry of Health publishes live on-call rotas for hospitals, pharmacies, doctors and psychiatric units, and in Athens that rota rather than a general search is how you find what is open. The ambulance and medical emergency number is 166. Save the others as well: poison control on 210 779 3777, the National Social Solidarity Centre on 197, mental health support on 1145 and 10306, the SOS line for children and parents on 1056, and the substance abuse helpline on 1031.
Private hospitals
The large private hospitals here, Hygeia, Metropolitan and Mitera, publish price catalogues online. Hygeia's states that the listed prices are final including VAT where it applies, that the hospital may change or withdraw the catalogue at any time without notice, and that separate discounts run through partner and corporate programmes. Confirm the price when you book rather than work from the published figure, because no reliable euro price for a private consultation in Athens could be verified for this guide.
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