A new agency could assess health conditions for benefits and pensions

Posted On: October 29, 2023

Starting next year, a new agency could be tasked with assessing the health status of applicants for care benefits or disability pensions. The medical assessment service of the social administration will be transformed into it. According to František Boháček, director of the Czech Social Security Administration, these changes are intended to enable better management and speed up assessments.

People apply for care benefits to the employment office, which then forwards the case to the social administration assessment service. The file then comes back again. Labor Minister Marian Jurečka (KDU-ČSL) has said that his department is preparing for unification “under one roof” to simplify and speed up processing.

According to the amendments, the district branches of the ČSSZ will be transformed into regular workplaces, and they should be under five new territorial administrations. According to the Ministry of Manpower, this will allow the agenda to be moved more quickly to less busy places, and will save management positions. In addition to these standards, the department prepared a draft with the new Institute for Health Assessment (IPZS). The statement was submitted to the House of Representatives by Klára Kocmanová, a member of the ruling Pirates, but her words are not yet available on the lower house’s website.

Parliament’s proposal for amendments to the social security organization, which is being discussed by the lower house, envisages a new arrangement. On Tuesday, parliament’s social committee discussed the standards.

According to Boháček, after the change, assessors across the country will have to handle applications in the order they are received. They will share the agenda. “We have been trying for a long time to create a system where there would be only one queue and it would not be specified whether a client was from Prague – where we do not have a medical examiner – or from another region,” explains Boháček. According to him, this is not going well because of inconsistent management and local jurisdiction of the assessment department in the regional government. Taking over cases from elsewhere is considered a favor, not an ordinary procedure, the CSSS director said.

This institution should be based in Hradec Králové. “We were inspired by Germany, which has one assessment office in Essen with a sub-branch,” said Iva Merhautová (KDU-ČSL), senior director of the ministry’s social insurance and non-insurance benefits section.

According to its leader, Václav Krása, the National Council of Disabled People does not oppose it. “Transfer of documentation from one institution to another and back again will be cancelled. The Department of Labor will receive it, send it to the social administration, which will assess it, send it back – and that’s how they do it. disappeared,” said Krása. However, he was worried that the way the discussions were being discussed could be challenged at the Constitutional Court.

Some opposition lawmakers spoke of circumventing the proper legislative process. “We didn’t like it because it was a fundamental change. We told ourselves we wouldn’t be surprised. I know we are in the opposition and the government has one hundred and eight, but we can’t work like this,” said Jana Pastuchová, vice president of the social committee (ANO).

The committee was supposed to discuss the amendment with the other two standards last week. To all of them, coalition MPs presented broader proposals for change from the ministerial workshop. Opposition lawmakers criticized him. Jurečka pointed out that the opposition operates the same way it does when in government. He added that if the next amendment was waited for, it would mean a delay of at least one year.