On January 1, employers and employees must say goodbye to the “yellow slip”: The certificate of incapacity for work (AU) will be replaced by a digital solution (eAU). That should make everything easier — right?
We have summarized for you what you as an employer need to know about new EAU and how you can best prepare for the changeover.
eAU: The long road to a digital solution
As early as September 2019, the eAU was adopted as part of the Bureaucracy Act III. Ironically, an infectious disease of all things caused its entry into force to be postponed twice — first, the pandemic presented employers with much more far-reaching challenges, then, in a pilot phase, there were problems with the transfer of data from medical practices to health insurance companies. Corona is still not over now, but the starting signal has finally been given for companies, doctors and health insurance companies.
How does an EAU work?
Employees currently receive three paper certificates from their family doctor in the event of illness: A copy for presentation to the employer, a copy for health insurance and a copy for their own documents. The latter document will continue to be handed over by the medical practice to its working patients. The eAU takes care of the rest in three steps:
- The attending physician determines that the employee is unable to work and transmits this information to the competent health insurance company in the form of an electronic certificate of incapacity for work.
- As before, the employee informs his employer about his inability to work and the expected duration of his illness. However, he no longer has to provide proof of his doctor's visit and sick leave (as before in the form of an AU).
- The employer may now submit a request to the health insurance company about incapacity for work. Attention: The eAU will not be delivered to you automatically!
You will then find the following data in your employee's eAU:
- name of the employee (s),
- start and end of incapacity for work,
- date of medical diagnosis of incapacity for work,
- an identification of whether it is an initial or a subsequent message, and
- information as to whether there is evidence that the incapacity for work is due to an accident at work or other accident.
What pitfalls can occur?
If your company hasn't prepared for eAU yet, you're in good company. In a pilot project to introduce the new system, a third of the participating medical practices had not yet even been connected — the technical equipment was missing. And it is to be expected that this will not be the case across the board even in January.
Delayed or incorrectly issued eAU by health insurance can also lead to problems. In particular in the case of prejudiced relationships between employee and employer, this can quickly be interpreted as an unexcused absence and lead to a dispute over continued payment of pay.
As an employer, you will need to adapt your processes to eAU. While it was common practice in many companies to save absenteeism based on AU in time recording, you must now proactively obtain this information from health insurance and then forward it — preferably in electronic form — to time recording and billing. Or you rely on the information provided by your employee — but if there are discrepancies in the eAU, conflicts are inevitable.
The previous obligation to submit the certificate of incapacity for work becomes a “declaration obligation” on the part of the employee that he must have the incapacity to work established. As of early December 2022, risks of incorrect transmission will be assigned to the employer.
In addition, many employment contracts that are linked to the previous legal regulation, the obligation to present a certificate of incapacity for work, will be incorrect in content. The employer can then no longer require the presentation of a certificate of incapacity for work.
However, it remains the case that diagnostic data — as before — is not shared with the employer.
Another new feature: The eAU also applies to workers on a mini-job basis. Until now, you did not have to check the health insurance of your mini-jobbers, as this information was only relevant for the mini-job center. Now you would have to obtain the information retrospectively.
Who is excluded from eAU?
Nothing will change for privately insured employees at first — they will continue to receive a “yellow slip” for health insurance and another for you as an employer. This point in particular is a significant additional bureaucratic burden for employers, as the “paper solution” is not completely eliminated. Certificates from doctors from abroad also remain unaffected by the new regulation.
How do I prepare my company for eAU?
It's best to check your workflow now: Who is involved in AU notifications in your company? Who should request eAU from the respective health insurance company in the future? Are IT, time recording and payroll already informed and integrated into the new processes? How do we want to deal with incidents?
And perhaps your most important task before the turn of the year: Inform your employees about the change. From the first day of incapacity to work, you may continue to require that your employees have a corresponding certificate issued by a doctor. From the fourth day at the latest, the determination of the EAU's incapacity for work is mandatory for employees. The obligation to report incapacity for work also remains unchanged, meaning that employees remain obliged to immediately report the incapacity for work and its expected duration.
