Status: 07/12/2022 10:27 am
The Corona summer wave is rolling over Germany, the number of infections is increasing. A lot of people are currently catching a cold. Nevertheless, there is no longer the possibility of calling sick leave. General practitioners call for a rethink.
Germany’s general practitioners have called for a return to the possibility of taking sick leave over the phone. In view of numerous cases of colds and corona diseases, the chairman of the German Association of General Practitioners, Ulrich Weigeldt, called it “a real nuisance” that the possibility of determining incapacity for work (AU) by telephone had not been included in standard care. “The telephone AU would provide real relief,” Weigeldt told the dpa news agency.
Since June 1st, patients have had to go back to the practice or to a video consultation to get sick leave. In the case of minor diseases of the upper respiratory tract, during the corona pandemic until May 31st, this was possible for seven days even after only a telephone consultation.
Weigeldt said: “A personal consultation with the family doctor is not always absolutely necessary, for example in the case of a simple flu infection or a mild course of the corona virus.”
“Forced to drag yourself to the doctor’s office when you’re sick”
In the case of simple infections or mild Covid diseases, the head of the association believes it would make sense if the general practitioners could write sick people for a few days after a telephone consultation. As a rule, both sides have known each other for a long time, said Weigeldt. Abuse is very rare. “Instead, the patients are now being forced to drag themselves to the doctor’s office when they are sick without it being medically absolutely necessary.”
According to the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA), it is possible to return to the option of taking sick leave by telephone. The committee is the body with representatives of the medical profession, health insurance companies and hospitals that decides on the services of the statutory health insurance funds and rules such as sick leave.
Special rules can be reintroduced
In the spring of 2022, there was an intensive discussion in this committee “whether it is right to let the previous special regulations for telephone sick leave expire at the end of May 2022 for the time being,” said a spokeswoman for the dpa. All sponsors of the G-BA and thus also the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians as the representative of the medical profession agreed at the time that such special rules could be withdrawn because of the calmer pandemic situation at the time.
This was done in line with everyday relaxation, it said. “Should the corona pandemic pick up speed again,” said the spokeswoman, the Federal Joint Committee could “reactivate” its special regulations. This can happen in certain regions or, if necessary, nationwide. For this purpose, among other things, an application would have to be submitted to the committee. According to the G-BA spokeswoman, this could come from the sponsors of the committee, such as the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians.
RKI registers 154,729 new corona infections
According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), a sharp increase in corona infections can currently be observed. It is dominated by the omicron subline BA.5. In addition, data and assessments from doctors and pharmacists show that there are unusually many respiratory infections in Germany for this time of year.
The RKI gave the nationwide seven-day incidence at 702.4. The day before, the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants within a week was 661.4 (previous week: 687.7; previous month: 333.7). The health authorities reported 154,729 new corona infections (previous week: 147,489) and 165 deaths (previous week: 102) to the RKI.
Underreporting of the infection situation suspected
However, the incidence and daily data do not provide a complete picture of the infection situation. Experts have been assuming for some time that there will be a large number of cases not recorded by the RKI – mainly because not all infected people have a PCR test done. But only positive PCR tests count in the statistics. In addition, late registrations and transmission problems can lead to the distortion of individual daily values. In addition, the number of registered new infections and deaths varies significantly from weekday to weekday.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the RKI has counted 29,180,489 detected infections with Sars-CoV-2. The actual total number is likely to be significantly higher, as many infections go undetected.