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The option to have incapacity for work assessed by telephone – introduced as an exception during the coronavirus pandemic – received a great deal of media attention.
This has overshadowed the fact that, in July of this year – entirely independently of the pandemic – the Joint Federal Committee (G-BA), comprising leading representatives of doctors, health insurance funds and hospitals, made it possible in appropriate cases to determine incapacity for work via video consultations. This change came into force on 7 October 2020.
In a new draft bill, the Federal Minister for Health plans to extend the assessment of incapacity for work in the context of remote treatment even further. As a result, the digital assessment of incapacity for work could soon become the norm, at least for minor illnesses.
You can read about the labour law issues this raises in the article by kallan lawyer Julia Loos in the latest online edition of the Deutscher AnwaltSpiegel:
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