The mutuals ask that the registrations for COVID be accelerated due to "unnecessary lengthening" of the registrations
The Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (AMAT), which groups together the business associations that collaborate with the Social Security system in the management of benefits, has asked this Wednesday that the discharges of temporary disabilities due to COVID be expedited due to "an unnecessary lengthening of the processes" of sick leave due to the saturation of Primary Care. The mutuals assure that the COVID casualties reached 566,175 people in the month of December according to their data, which doubles the provisional figures provided yesterday by Social Security (240,000) with data only until the 23rd.
Health and communities agree to reduce the isolation of COVID-19 positives without symptoms to seven days
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The omicron variant has caused an explosion of infections in December, which continues to rise. The mutuals point out that the expansion of the virus has caused "a veritable tsunami of work losses during the month of December, which does not seem to subside in the first weeks of January."
The first data on sick leave due to the ómicron irruption were provided this Tuesday by Social Security. With figures still provisional and until December 23, the Ministry reported 240,011 dismissal processes initiated. The data is triple all the casualties in November, about 76,000, but it seems very small given the magnitude of the infections in this latest wave.
Evolution of the curve of new cases, admissions, ICU and deaths in Spain
Evolution of
number of new cases, hospital admissions, ICU admissions Y daily deaths in Spain. The cases are shown by date of diagnosis, admissions and ICU by date of admission and for the deceased by date of death. Click to see the detail
The data only includes cases confirmed with an analytical test and the figures for the last weeks are underestimated due to delays
Source: Ministry of Health
The mutuals today maintain that their data on cancellations throughout December are double (and more) the provisional data provided by Social Security. "Specifically, 566,175 people were on sick leave, which represents an increase of 632% over the previous month according to AMAT estimates", collects the mutual employers' association.
Social Security sources consulted for these figures refer to their official data, which are still provisional and will be updated in the coming weeks. The Ministry explains that the final and detailed figures are generally published with some delay. For example at this moment they are available for the month of October.
An "unnecessary lengthening" that does not register Social Security
Employers' organizations focus their note this Wednesday on the request to speed up the registration process for workers infected by COVID, since supposedly "an unnecessary lengthening of the processes for sick leave due to Covid is being caused" given the saturation of Primary Care, they indicate.
"This bottleneck" in health centers, points out AMAT, is having consequences "in the unnecessary lengthening of the duration of these temporary disability processes, which in addition to affecting the costs of companies and economic activity, also It has a very negative impact on the Social Security and State accounts ":
However, Social Security reported on Tuesday just the opposite: the reduction in the average duration of the COVID casualties that they are registering. A reduction in the days of sick leave that had already been decreasing in the past months and that this December is contracting even more.
It must be remembered that the Government and the Communities agreed reduce COVID casualties from ten to seven days in positive patients (as long as there are no symptoms in the last three days). In case of continuing with symptoms in this period, the loss is extended.
What the mutuals demand, to speed up the incorporation of workers to their positions, is that "a mechanism be established at the national level by which physicians will simultaneously process the discharge and discharge reports in a single medical act, with a duration seven days ". Thus, only those workers who had not recovered within that established period would have "to contact the Health Center again."
A Primary Care physician explains to elDiario.es that currently it is not possible to process the discharge and discharge with a period of time marked in the computer system and she doubts its legality. "As a doctor I have to contact the patient to find out how he is when he is discharged," he explains. The health company says that doctors cannot discharge at the weekend, since they do not work, even if the seven-day quarantine for the patient is fulfilled on Saturday. "I would be discharged on Monday," he says.
In mutual insurance companies, they consider that this simultaneous discharge / discharge mechanism "would reduce almost by half the time that doctors have to dedicate to these administrative procedures, with the benefit that this would have in the decongestion of Primary Care, which could thus dedicate many more resources to health care ", they add.
