Criticism of chicane with sick pay

Patient commissioner criticizes funds for pressure on sick-pay recipients

08/17/2014

Karl-Josef Laumann, patient representative of the black-red federal government, has the statutory health insurance claimed for pressureless long-term patients to put pressure and thus to push out of the sick pay.

Unemployed long-term patients are put under pressure
According to various press reports, the patient representative of the black-red federal government, Karl-Josef Laumann (CDU), the statutory health insurance claimed for pressureless long-term patients put under pressure and thus to push out of the sick pay reference. „Again and again, patients complain about the behavior of their health insurance in connection with the granting of sickness benefit“, so the CDU politician opposite the „world“. This would also prove the reports of the Independent Patient Counseling Germany (UPD).

Pressure from regular phone calls
„It must be made clear that it is unacceptable for employees of the health insurance fund to put pressure on patients, for example by making regular telephone calls, or to request intimate information from the insured.“ The patient representative explained: „The examination of incapacity for work rests solely with the medical service of the health insurance, which may only judge for medically professional reasons.“ Laumann advised affected patients to contact the health insurance supervisory authority or a counseling center such as Independent Patient Counseling. „And of course I take appropriate complaints.“

Thousands of complaints every year
Every year thousands of patients complain to counseling centers that they are being pressured out by their statutory health insurance in telephone calls or with short-term return requests to leave sickness benefits. But not all diseases are quickly over. Complaints like backache or depression can often take weeks or months. Employees who are incapacitated for work should be banned from calling the cash registers. Andrea Fabris from the Advice Center Potsdam of the UPD advised last month according to a dpa report: „If I feel pressured, I should tell the caller, „No, I do not want to comment on that now, please do not call me again.“

After six weeks claim for sickness benefit
After a sick leave, the employer must continue to pay the employee for six weeks. If the inability to work confirmed by a doctor lasts longer, the health insurance company has to step in. As Dirk Lullies of the Association of Private Health Insurance PKV in Berlin said earlier this year, means incapacitated, if someone could exercise his previous occupation to less than 50 percent. In addition, cause must actually be a disease and not an accident, because then the accident insurance would be responsible. The sickness benefit amounts to 70 percent of the gross income and is paid for one and the same illness for a maximum of one and a half years. (Ad)