Status: 03/31/2023 1:07 p.m
The regulation was introduced during the pandemic and expires today: the telephone sick leave for mild respiratory diseases. But there are increasing calls to keep the possibility.
The possibility of telephone sick leave for mild cold symptoms is no longer available. From tomorrow on, patients will have to visit a doctor personally again. But there are several calls and appeals to keep the regulations: GPs and consumer advocates are in favor of holding on to sick leave by telephone in the interest of medical care.
“It’s no longer possible without a sick note by phone”
“To put it bluntly: it’s no longer possible to get sick leave over the phone,” said Nicola Buhlinger-Göpfarth, deputy head of the German Association of General Practitioners, to the editorial network Germany (RND). This applies in particular to the acute waves of infection, as there were last winter.
“Anyone who pulls the plug on sick leave by phone now endangers the supply and accepts that the family doctor’s practices will come under increasing pressure,” emphasized Buhlinger-Göpfarth.
The Federal Association of Consumers (vzbv) also called for the regulation to be retained. Politicians and experts agreed that they had to learn from the corona pandemic and preserve what was tried and tested, said the association’s health expert, Thomas Moormann, to the RND. “Unfortunately, this is not the case with the telephone sick note, which was practiced very successfully and which could definitely be described as an innovation,” he complained and called on the traffic light coalition to regulate its retention by law.
Greens: Maintain and expand regulation
The Greens are also in favor of keeping it. Health policy spokesman Janosch Dahmen told the dpa news agency that this was an important relief for patients and doctors, which had proven itself. “We should not only continue the regulation, but also expand it to include other acute complaints beyond respiratory diseases.”
According to Dahmen, parents who have sick children at home should be able to use the telephone sick note as standard. “The regulation should also be extended to additional acute illnesses such as a gastrointestinal infection or endometriosis patients”.
The traffic light coalition should therefore decide on a quick and pragmatic continuation. “Family doctors and pediatricians know their patients,” explained the health expert. You could make a decision about sick leave over the phone.
Regulation has been possible almost continuously since the end of March 2020
The possibility of taking sick leave by telephone was a special regulation introduced by the Federal Joint Committee of Doctors, Clinics and Health Insurance Companies during the Corona crisis. Since the end of March 2020, it has been possible almost continuously to call in sick for mild respiratory problems. This should reduce unnecessary contacts and avoid corona infections.
The Federal Joint Committee had extended the special regulation several times, most recently until March 31. The RKI downgraded the risk assessment for Germany from high to moderate in early February. In view of the more relaxed pandemic situation, the regulation is now expiring.
Sick leave via video consultation
But you keep an eye on them and you can activate them again very quickly if necessary, the chairman of the joint federal committee of doctors, clinics and health insurance companies, Josef Hecken, made clear to the dpa. “Regardless of the pandemic situation, insured persons can also receive sick leave during a video consultation – not just for mild respiratory diseases.”
“So that means that there is already the regular possibility that an insured person does not have to go to the doctor’s office for every illness,” says Hecken. The prerequisite is, of course, that the inability to work can be clarified without an immediate physical examination.