The days are numbered for all employees to notify their companies of Temporary Disability Leave (TI) if they have a medical mishap and are unable to work. The last Council of Ministers of the year last week approved a Royal Decree introducing changes to the management and control of Temporary Disability (IT) processes during the first 365 days of their duration.
In particular, the government has removed the obligation for the self-employed to be the ones who must forward the sick leave reports to their companies, as the company must collect the information from the administration. Thus, according to the text of those responsible for social security, “only one copy (of the leave) is sent to the employee; and both the second copy and the obligation of the worker himself to deliver this copy to the company, management company or mutual society are eliminated”. In this way, the second copy of the sick leave and dismissal reports that the employee had to send to his company disappears through the route chosen by the employee himself.
As an alternative, the standard envisages that “communication between the issuing bodies and the INSS should be carried out by telematics, avoiding procedures which may be burdensome for persons with a temporary disability and exploiting opportunities to improve the effectiveness and efficiency that advances in of digitization and information technologies.
However, this Royal Decree, approved by the Council of Ministers last week and amending Royal Decree 625/2014, will not come into force until it is published in the Official Gazette (BOE) soon. Article 7.1 of this 2014 Royal Decree was the one that established the employee’s obligation to submit the sick leave and redundancy reports to his employer.
Subsequently, the courts have ruled that since the law does not specify the channel through which these reports should be sent to the companies, it would be the worker’s prerogative to choose the mechanism through which to report compliance with this obligation. This makes it possible, for example, to send the parties by email.
Social Security officials decided to take this measure “to speed up procedures and eliminate bureaucratic constraints that unnecessarily prolong procedures, which is an important benefit for companies, workers and for the public health doctors themselves”.
According to the latest audited figures for the year ended, corresponding to 2021, by the Association of Mutual Insurance Companies for Accidents at Work (AMAT), which is responsible for managing 100% of sick leave due to accidents at work and also, at the request of the company, more than 80% of sick leave due to general illness – the average frequency of this type of sick leave affects about 25 workers per 1,000 protected workers among white-collar workers; and only 8.7 independently.
These figures, revised in March 2022, also show that the average length of medical leave varies by caregiver, although there is not much variation. For employees, the absence from work certified with one of these days of leave lasted 45.9 days in 2021 when managed by a social security mutual and 49 days when managed directly by social security.
The sick leave for the self-employed lasts more than twice as long as for employees. Concretely 115 days managed by mutual societies. And this duration is multiplied by three, up to an average of 300 days in the case of self-employed leave managed by the INSS, which are those who have already passed a medical court at the end of a year of leave.
What does not seem to change is that the issuance of sick leave and discharge slips for common illnesses remains the exclusive competence of the doctors of the regional health services (head doctors of the respective Autonomous Communities), despite constant efforts to empower the mutuals to authorize their doctors to do so. This measure never stops, despite the fact that IT spending is one that all governments want to address. In fact, next year means a payout of almost 12,000 million euros. It accounts for 6.14% of Social Security spending and is the second largest budget item in the system after pension payments.
More medical reviews
- future text. The Royal Decree approved by the last Council of Ministers in 2022, which amends Royal Decree 625/2014 of July 18 and which has yet to be published in the BOE for it to come into force, also stipulates that “in the processes of Incapacity for work For fear, doctors from the public health service, the collaborating company or the mutual, depending on the evolution of the procedure, may set shorter medical review deadlines than those indicated in the Royal Decree. This is to “avoid interpretative doubts based on the current wording of the standard,” they add from the social security system.