Electronic certificate of excused absence from work

At the beginning of 2020, a new IT solution was introduced in Slovenia – the electronic certificate of excused absence from work, which replaced the paper form (the so-called sick-leave), thus relieving the insured people, clinics and employers from work.

Certificate of excused absence from work (in general) or “sick leave” is a public document issued to the insured by a general practitioner or by a child’s doctor. The employee must deliver it to his employer.

Certificate of excused absence from work represents the basis for the correct calculation of the wage or the basis for the submission of the claim for compensation of the wage because of the temporary absence from work at the expense of compulsory health insurance.

Until February 2020, the insured person was issued a paper certificate. As of February, an existing paper version was replaced by an electronic certificate of excused absence from work.

Insured persons (employees) are no long delivering paper forms to their employers. Employers are now obliged to access electronic certificates for their employees electronically via Slovenian Business Point portal. The doctors can still issue a paper version, but only in exceptional cases.

An IT solution that allows employers to access these electronic certificates was established on the Slovenian Business Point portal with the participation of the Health Insurance Institute and the Ministry of Public Administration.

Employers can access electronic certificates in two ways:

• via the Slovenian Business Point portal or
• the use of the online service -  eBOL and eNDM interface, which is also facilitated by the Slovenian Business Point portal.

The way of access depends on the work process of each business entity.

For access through Slovenian Business Point portal one needs:

• access to the internet,
• a digital certificate,
• authorization (in this case, the legal representative authorizes some other person to access electronic certificates).

One can access electronic certificates by logging into the portal and after into the selected company and choose »Transmission of electronic certificate of excused absence from work«

If employers access electronic certificates using an online service, they can perform certain procedures for Health Insurance of Slovenia directly from their personnel (HR) program or payroll program.

The electronic certificate is available in PDF and XML format. The view of all issued electronic certificates for a selected period and selected employer is enabled. An electronic certificate for an individual worker can be selected from the displayed list, it is also possible to transfer the whole list of issued electronic certificate of the selected period.

With the introduction of the electronic certificate of excused absence from work the e-procedure for the submission of the claim for compensation of the wage was also simplified – it is no longer required to provide paper form scanned certificates.

Every insured individual can access to his electronic certificates through a web portal that was established by the Health Institute – https://moj.zzzs.si.

For the use of the mentioned portal, one needs a qualified digital certificate – this certificate also enables the use of other portals, such as eGovernment portal (eUprava), tax portal (eDavki) ...

One major simplification of the introduction of this IT solution is the reduction of administrative work, a faster electronic process for healthcare providers, which is an essential step of faster preparation of the electronic certificate and its transfer.

It is also estimated that more than 50 % of insured individuals will no longer have to visit his personal doctor or pediatrician at the end of sick leave (the doctor may professionally evaluate that the final medical examination at the end of the sick leave is not necessary).

The introduction of the electronic certificate of excused absence from work of is one of the major measures in the field of digitization of business operations with the state in the Republic of Slovenia in the recent period.

The introduction changes the work process in all areas of treatment of sick leaves, particularly in:

• abolishing the printing of paper form certificates for insured persons;
• no more purchase and printing of forms for clinics;
• digitalization of the process of handling data on patient sick leaves;
• digitization of data collection by health clinics for the National Institute of Public Health
• digitalization of data transmission of each health clinics to the National Institute of Public Health
• digitization of obtaining data from various sources on the website of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia regarding the number of sick leaves.

Based on the evaluation report, the total estimated savings with the introduction of this IT solution and also connected IT solutions are 11.547.389,35 EUR