Having an AU – a certificate of incapacity for work – issued and presenting it to your employer will be possible in the future for simple colds without having to go to the doctor’s office. The Joint Federal Committee of doctors, health insurance companies and clinics decided to change a directive at its meeting this morning and thus created the possibility of taking sick notes over the telephone.
There was already a corresponding special rule during the corona pandemic. However, it expired in April. Since then, medical associations have repeatedly called for a permanent solution. In the summer, the Bundestag gave the Federal Joint Committee the legal mandate to initiate the possibility of sick leave by telephone. This has now happened and – unlike the committee’s usual decisions – the change is valid immediately, i.e. from December 7th. The house of Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) still has to examine the decision, but this is considered a formality.
However, there are a few conditions. Patients who want to use the telephone sick note must only have mild symptoms of illness and must already be known to the doctor in question.
Markus Beier, the head of the general practitioners’ association, explained on Deutschlandfunk this morning that telephone sick leave could be used, for example, if “the nose is running and the head is a little pressed”. In practice, this will probably work in such a way that someone calls reception and then the doctor calls them back for clarification. If symptoms are more severe, patients should continue to come to the practice in the future, said Beier.
The reaction of the medical profession to the decision is positive. The telephone sick note helps patients and the potential for abuse is low, says the head of the general practitioners’ association, Beier. The processes in general practitioner practices, which are currently “at the limit”, would be significantly simplified. This is urgently needed given the number of sick people at the moment and the problems with the slow pace of digitalization in the healthcare system. “We need time for the really sick,” said Beier.
Employers are more critical. The general manager of the employers’ association BDA, Steffen Kampeter, sees telephone sick leave as a measure that “significantly challenges” the peace in companies, as he told Deutschlandfunk.