To reduce the burden on doctors and the “running around” of chronic patients between various specialists, at least two laws need to be reviewed and potentially amended. These are the Work Ability Assessment Act and the Disability Assessment Act. The principle of both laws is that patients with chronic illness(es) must regularly attend health check-ups between assessments, depending on the diagnosis, with one or multiple doctors. The last visits must take place six months before submitting the application to the Unemployment Insurance Fund and the Social Insurance Board, where the doctor essentially has 20 minutes to write an epicrisis covering the entire disease chronology between assessments (personal experience from last year)! Something to think about! The reason is that the “health experts” of the aforementioned agencies only read, figuratively speaking, the “title page” (patient data, diagnosis, and treating doctors) and the “last paragraph” (the latest epicrisis in the patient portal). This raises the question: why the obligation to visit the doctor(s) regularly?

Since one visit typically lasts 20 minutes, I have previously sent an email to the doctor before the visit about my health condition during the period between the two meetings, and the doctor has usually added this to their entry. However, reading the initial decision from the Social Insurance Board last year, it felt like a “miraculous recovery” had occurred (final decision: no disability granted), even though everything that had happened in the interim five years was reflected in the patient portal?! Naturally, I filed an appeal along with an extract from my personal health diary (showing the frequency and duration of sick days) and pictures illustrating the actual nature and impact of the primary diagnosis on the quality of life.

Therefore, the requirement for constant regular doctor visits should be changed (if it is already visible in the patient portal that I regularly take various medications 2-3 times a day), replacing them with need-based visits (if there is a real problem or question where my knowledge and the medicines available at the pharmacy are insufficient). This would significantly reduce the burden on doctors and the waiting times for appointments, ensuring that those in need receive timely necessary treatment, not when complications have already developed or new illnesses have arisen, requiring an appointment with the next doctor.