The electronic administration of the sickness-accident benefit was decided after close cooperation between the Minister of Labour & Social Affairs Yannis Vroutsis, the Minister for Digital Governance Kyriakos Pierrakakis and the Minister for Health Vasilis Kikilias.
As stated in an announcement of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs: «Specifically, through the Single Digital Portal of Public Administration (gov.gr) electronic service for the granting of sickness-accident benefits and it is now possible for insured persons insured under the e-EFKA to receive the allowance.
In more detail, the personal presence of hundreds of thousands of insured persons in the e-EFKA services is abolished and automates the entire online application process for all three parties involved in the granting of the benefit: The insured, the employer and the e-EFKA. Plus, the attending physician will send the certificate of incapacity for work due to the insured person's illness electronically in the Electronic Prescription System of the EDIKA SA.
The insured person will enter the aforementioned online service and will submit the application for sickness benefits online. At the same time, the insured person's employer will be informed electronically through the service in order to enter the service and confirm the insured person's details and period of absence from work.».
The same statement stressed that: «The electronic applications will be processed by the information system of e-EFKA as it will be able to verify the correctness of all data through the Interoperability Centre (KED) of the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Digital Governance, without the presence of the insured person at the competent services. Subsequently, the approval decision of the online application will be issued and the payment of the sickness-accident benefits will be made to the bank accounts of the applicants.
The new online service is another decisive step for the fast and efficient service of citizens, especially in this era of restrictive measures on the movement of workers and insured persons. It eliminates the need for insured persons to be present in person at the services and eliminates long waits and inconvenience, while requests for payment of benefits are processed more quickly for beneficiaries. Finally, thousands of man-hours are freed up and a huge administrative burden on services is removed.
