‘Click Line’ for doctors who write out too many sickness chards should help to get half a million long -term sick Belgians back to work

Vandenbroucke’s measure is just one of the many that the federal government that agreed last Friday in the Easter agreement. In order to get the 526,000 long -term sick in our country, which cost the government more than 9 billion euros in 2023, the prescription behavior of doctors in the sights of the government, among other things, comes.

By the end of this year, all doctor’s regulations that people keep at home will be collected in a database for more than one day. In this way there is an overview of which doctors write their patients in large numbers or at home for a very long time. According to the outliers The latest news are approached for their prescription behavior and risk a financial sanction.

In addition, from 1 July it will be forbidden to write handwritten sickness reports and in the future doctors will never be allowed to write to someone for more than three months in the first year of illness. There will also be a reporting point where employers can indicate ‘overy’ doctors if they have suspicions of fraudulent certificates.

Another novelty is that from 1 January the employer will have to pay 30 percent of the benefit during the second and third month of illness. Currently, the employer pays the wage of a sick person for four weeks, after which the sick person falls back on a payment from the hospital, which is usually captured at 60 percent of the gross wage. The reform must encourage employers to focus more on disease prevention and adapted work.

Sick who live on a benefit also risk a financial sanction if they fail to complete a questionnaire after ten weeks or refuse to cooperate with a back-to-work-coach. Anyone who does not show up without a valid reason on two of the three mandatory doctor’s visits during the first year of illness loses their full benefit.