Sickness regime

As regulated in Article 25 of the 2014 Law on Social Insurance, employees who have to take leave due to sickness or to care for their sick children aged under seven with the certification of a competent health establishment will enjoy the sickness regime. This regime now also applies to employees who are infected with COVID-19 or have to take leave to care for their children aged under 7 infected with COVID-19.

- Required documents for employees to get sickness compensation are based on Article 100 of the 2014 Law on Social Insurance and Article 21 of Circular 56/2017/TT-BYT of the Ministry of Health. 

Specifically, required documents include: 

+ For COVID-19 patients treated at hospitals: hospital discharge documents.

+ For other COVID-19 patients: certificate of leave proving them eligible for social insurance benefits or hospital discharge documents requiring them to take leave at home after being treated at hospitals.

Photo for illustration (sources: internet)

- Duration: Circular 56/2017/TT-BYT regulates that patients are granted a certificate of leave for a maximum of 30 days each time they undergo health examination. In case COVID-19 patients need to take leave for more than 30 days, they need to undergo health examination again to have doctors decide whether they need longer leave when the 30-day leave is going to end.

 - Level of benefits: Article 28 of the 2014 Law on Social Insurance regulates that during their leave, employees are entitled to an allowance of 75 per cent of the salary of the month preceding their leave on which social insurance premiums are based.

- Procedures to deal with the documents:

+ In order to benefit from sickness compensation after recovering from COVID-19, employees need to submit to their employers a copy of hospital discharge document for employees who undergo inpatient treatment; and certificate of leave or hospital discharge document with doctors requiring employees to take longer leave after treatment, within 45 days since they return to work, so that their employers can complete required documents and submit to the social insurance agency. The social insurance agency will provide sickness compensation from the employees within six working days from when they receive enough related documents as regulated.

+ Employees can receive compensation via a transfer to their personal bank account or via their employers.

Photo for illustration (source: internet)

Convalescence and health rehabilitation after sickness

According to Article 29 of the 2014 Law on Social Insurance, after being treated for COVID-19 or other diseases, if an employee who has taken leave under the sickness regime for the full number of days as regulated but whose health has not yet recovered within 30 days after returning to work, is entitled to a leave of between 5 days and 10 days per year for convalescence and health rehabilitation. During this time, employees will get an allowance of 30 per cent of their basic salary, equivalent to VND447,000 per day.

Amid the complicated development of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of COVID-19 patients treated at home keeps increasing. However, Circular 56/2017/TT-BYT of the Ministry of Health does not include regulations about the granting of documents for patients treated at home or medical facilities or employees taking leave to care for their children aged under 7 infected with COVID-19, to enjoy sickness compensation, the Vietnam Social Security has issued some documents to report and propose the Ministry of Health to deal with this situation.

Photo for illustration (source: internet)

The Ministry of Health on January 14 issued a document, saying that at present, legal documents do not include regulations about replacing the certificate of leave with other documents to get social insurance benefits. There are also no regulations for social insurance agencies to accept documents that are not regulated by law to deal with social insurance benefits for employees.

Therefore, the ministry is studying and proposing some related contents that have not yet been regulated in legal documents to propose the Government or the National Assembly Standing Committee issue a resolution to deal with the situation.

With the motto of ensuring the best benefits for participants, the Vietnam Social Security is always willing to fully deal with social insurance regimes for employees infected with COVID-19 and have enough documents as regulated. In case employees are infected with COVID-19 but face difficulties in submitting enough documents as required to get sickness compensation, they should contact local medical establishments for further guidance./.