[Temporary disability and its legal implications]

Abstract

Temporary disability is the condition that workers face when, as the result of illness (common or professional) or accident (work-related or not), they are temporarily prevented from performing their work and require health care. The management of temporary disability is a medical act that involves (in addition to a complex clinical assessment) obvious social, occupational and financial connotations and requires continuing medical follow-up from doctors, as well as responses to medical-legal conflicts. The regulatory framework on the subject is extensive in the Spanish setting and highly diverse in the European setting. Beyond the regulatory framework, the repercussions of temporary disability are self-evident at all levels. Although determining temporary disability is a common medical act for practicing physicians, it is not exempt from risks or difficulties arising from the assessment itself and the characteristics of practicing medical care. Established medical-legal conflicts include the processing of health data and the requirements for transferring information related to workers' temporary disability to their company's medical services. The interest and usefulness demonstrated by the data obtained from forensic medicine for public health require the incorporation of these data into general healthcare information, as it could be essential to the surveillance of worker health. The recommendations established by medical societies, as good practice guidelines, are especially useful in this type of conflict.

Keywords: Absentismo; Cost of illness; Coste de la enfermedad; Gestión de la incapacidad laboral; Incapacidad temporal; Sick leave; Sick leaves management; Work absenteeism.