The Health Insurance Fund (HIF) will propose to the Board of Directors a draft amendment to the Sick Leave Rulebook, but also a draft amendment to the control criteria, to ensure that the funds we pay reach those who need them most and to ensure that we have mechanisms that will enable us to prevent potential abuse of sick leave, said Director Zlatko Perinski today.
One of the proposed amendments is to reduce the number of days that a family doctor can issue sick leave, from seven to five days. The amendments facilitate the procedure for issuing sick leave for those people who are unable to come in person to take out sick leave.
"In terms of control, we are establishing mechanisms for joint control with other stakeholders within the system, such as the Public Revenue Office and the Ministry of Interior, all in order to be able to carry out its controls appropriately, within the boundaries of each sector. What is new is that, according to the controller's report, the medical examination issued for medical sick leave by a medical commission can be further revised. Sick leave is always sensitive for the public. However, the idea is to prevent the right to sick leave, but also to prevent abuse in the form of distortion of sick leave, because the Health Insurance Fund for 2026 has foreseen 6 billion and 454 million denars in its budget, which are set aside for sick leave and maternity leave. That is a significant amount and in that direction we must tighten the control system," said Perinski.
In practice, as he explained, this means that a controller, at random, but also upon notification by an employer, will be able to ring the doorbell of a person who is on sick leave. If the controller does not find the person on sick leave at home, in that case he leaves a document that initiates the same person to contact the appropriate medical commission and explain why he is not at home or why he is not within the limits of the place where he is supposed to be on sick leave. Employers will also be notified of this.
The Board of Directors will have a meeting next week, and after the changes are adopted by the Board of Directors, a positive opinion and consent from the Ministry of Health will be secured and then immediately implemented.
Perinski also said that according to the current rulebook, when a prescription is issued by the on-duty services, the execution of that prescription must be realized within the same day, that is, by midnight.
"We propose an amendment to the Board of Directors so that the prescription has a validity period of 24 hours so that the patient who received health care on duty in the later hours is not in a race against time to fulfill it," he added.
