The corona crisis shakes the entire society and companies and authorities are forced to make exceptions to their usual rules and procedures. Everyone is affected, and according to the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, they want to reduce the burden by now removing the requirement for a sick certificate on the third week for the person applying for sickness benefit.

- We have decided this because it is a very special situation and above all it is a very high pressure on healthcare. This is a way of relieving them so that they do not have to work on producing sick certificates, says Jacob Lagercrantz, press officer at Försäkringskassan.

Valid from Friday

The new rules start to apply from tomorrow, March 27, and were a decision that the Social Insurance Agency could take on its own initiative through prevailing laws.

- You may need to make supplements afterwards, but in order to get your sickness benefit, we have eased the rules right now.

Under normal circumstances, an employer may require a medical certificate the second week an employee stays home from work due to illness. Until the fourteenth day of sickness, the employee receives sick pay that is paid by the employer, and from day 15 the employee can apply for sickness benefit from the Social Insurance Office.

- Then we will get an application that will describe what work and diagnosis you have to be able to judge if you are entitled to sickness benefit. As of tomorrow, the application does not have to include the documentation that describes your illness picture, says Jacob Lagercrantz.