From 2023, employees will no longer have to present their employer with a certificate of incapacity for work. This happens electronically. However, they should continue to insist on an AU expression for themselves.
From January 2023, employers will only receive the data on their employees’ incapacity for work from the health insurance companies electronically. The whole thing is called the eAU procedure – “e” for “electronic”, “AU” for “incapacity for work”. By the end of 2022, all practices that give the patient data to the cash register must have switched to the procedure. This will result in changes for insured persons.
So far, employees have been obliged to present their doctor to their employer no later than the fourth day of incapacity to work (certificate of incapacity for work). Colloquially, there is often talk of a yellow note or sick leave. You must also pass on an execution to the health insurance company.
What is new is: “The obligation to submit the certificate of incapacity for work in paper form will no longer apply from January 1, 2023,” says Alexander Bredereck, a specialist lawyer for labor law in Berlin. This applies at least to everyone who is legally insured.
With the eAU procedure, practices transmit the certificate electronically to the health insurance company on the day of the doctor’s visit, which will also make the data available electronically to the employer in the future. “The version for employers can be called up at the health insurance companies if required,” says Helge Dickau from the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds. The insured person does not receive any information about this.
However, private doctors, doctors abroad, rehabilitation facilities and physiotherapists and psychotherapists are not yet involved in the process. In addition, the Association of Private Health Insurance (PKV) reports on request that there is still no legal regulation to implement a corresponding offer for privately insured persons.
What does not change: People with statutory health insurance must continue to go to the doctor in good time and make it possible to create a certificate of incapacity for work, according to Bredereck.
Everything remains the same when it comes to reporting sick: as soon as an employee knows that he will not start work because of illness, the employer must be informed immediately. According to Bredereck, the employees must also provide information about the expected duration of the indisposition.
As with the yellow note, the employer only learns the name of the doctor with the eAU procedure, but nothing about the diagnosis or the findings. “He only finds out whether the continued inability to work or a new inability to work is due to the same illness,” says Bredereck. According to GKV spokesman Helge Dickau, employers use certified systems to access the eAU from the health insurance companies. Data protection is guaranteed.
The eAU brings less bureaucracy and paperwork, relieves the insured and is “an important step towards paperless practice,” says Dickau. However, specialist lawyer Alexander Bredereck expects that there will be irregularities in the introductory phase of the new procedure and, for example, requesting employers will receive error messages. This has no further meaning for employees: “Since the employee is not to blame for this, he must not suffer any disadvantages.”
According to the GKV, employees receive a paper version of the certificate of incapacity for work as usual for their own documents. When in doubt, patients should insist on this.
It still fulfills an important function in the event that the employer doubts the inability to work, says Bredereck. With their help, an employee proves that he or she was actually unable to work. “This is the only way for the employee to secure their right to continued payment of wages and avoid a warning or dismissal for inactivity.”
(This article was first published on Monday, November 28, 2022.)
