He wasn’t distributing Bibles or selling Tupperware.

In fact, he showed up at my Belgian home just to make me feel better.

Like a scene out of a theatrical play, I received a house call from a doctor when I was feeling like absolute crap in Belgium.

As an exchange student my senior year of high school, my immune system was absolutely shot, causing me to become a frequent stop on the visiting doctor’s list of houses.

When my host parents first told me I needed to go to the doctor to “fix that awful cough,” I was a little wary.

I’d never been to a Belgian doctor.

In fact, I’d never even been to a real doctor for a cough.

I had no idea if the hospitals would be the same, full of ill patients and frustrated secretaries.

I was picturing “Grey’s Anatomy,” only with a Belgian cast, speaking a menagerie of French and Flemish.

Fortunately, there was none of that.

Instead of hopping in our tiny Ford Fiesta, I sat on the couch and tried to translate what the French-speaking doctor was saying to me.

I caught something about taking my temperature with a thermometer, so I quickly went to pop it under my tongue, when the doctor literally snatched it away from me to put under my arm.

I felt like a slight idiot.

Although I looked like a dumb exchange student, the doctor ignored my American antics.

He then prescribed me three (yes, three) different medications to cure my simple cold.

And to my disbelief, the visit didn’t cost $150 or anything of the sort — instead, it was the tiny price of 20 euros.

The small price came in handy.

I started getting sick literally about once a month while I was across the pond.

In my American household, I would have been loaded up with Advil Cold & Sinus and sent to school.

But for the Belgians, it was different.

It soon became clear to me why my host parents were so fond of the house doctor.

They didn’t have to drive me anywhere, it wasn’t expensive and the doctor prescribed so many medications that it was virtually impossible for me to stay ill.

One time I was sick, my usual glasses-wearing doctor was booked.

I figured my host parents would just give up and let me lounge on the couch watching “Les Experts” (the American “CSI,” dubbed in French, aka my salvation).

Instead, they just called another doctor.

No struggle, no referral — just a simple change of who showed up on my doorstep.

It doesn’t stop there.

If I felt like, oh, I don’t know, acupuncture, I could simply visit a needle-bearing alternative health professional and the Ministry of Health would reimburse me.

Homeopathy and chiropractic practices also are reimbursable by the Belgian government.

Needless to say, all that changed when I came back to the U.S.

Earlier this semester, I woke up with an extremely sensitive, fire-engine-red eye, which I later discovered was the victim of a corneal ulcer.

No doctor at my doorstep.

Instead, I had to haul myself to the local urgent care facility.

After sitting in a waiting room with about 10 other people at 8:30 a.m., I finally got called by not the doctor, but the receptionist who just took names.

After an attitude-fueled discussion (someone didn’t have her coffee, and it wasn’t me), I finally was asked to give out my stepmother’s social security number to make sure my insurance worked.

I then had to call my stepmom, wait another 30 minutes to see the doctor and sit in the incubation tank of disease which was the waiting room.

An hour and a half later, I finally got to see the doctor.

She dubbed my corneal ulcer infected, and about 10 minutes later, I was told to pick up the prescription from urgent care — not my normal pharmacy.

I was then forced to hand over $20 for the world’s smallest bottle of eye drops, which was only covered by my insurance for $35 of the total $55.

At the end of the day I was stressed out, half-blind and broke. I longed for the days of “Les Experts” and not having to leave the house if I was ill.

In Belgium, being sick is a minor speed bump, while here, it’s the Mount Everest of social occurrences.

The Belgians might steal American TV shows, but I’m pretty sure we don’t have to worry about them taking a page from our health care system.

Thea Neal is the State News entertainment reporter. Reach her at nealthea@msu.edu.