Automated electronic sick leave certificates
Paper-based sick leaves are history. Since 2022, in Germany, the paper-based sick-leave process has been replaced with an electronic reporting procedure. As of 2023, the electronic certificate of incapacity for work (eAU) is mandatory.
What is the electronic certificate of incapacity for work?
The eAU refers to the digital form of a sick note. Based on the Bureaucracy Reduction Act III from 2019, the legislator aims to reduce bureaucratic efforts and promote sustainability. Up until now, certificates were printed in quadruplicate—for doctors, health insurance, employers, and the insured—and sent by mail.
Instead, there is now an electronic form containing a qualified electronic signature from the respective doctor. This form is digitally transmitted directly from the doctor to the health insurance companies.
What does the implementation of eAU entail?
Although the introduction of mandatory eAU reduces the burden on the insured and doctors, there is still a knowledge gap for employers. The following process is typically applied:
- Employees report sick and consult a doctor accordingly. If necessary, a certificate of incapacity for work is issued.
- The eAU is directly transmitted from the doctor's office to the respective health insurance.
- The sick employees report their illness to the employer.
- The employer must now request the relevant data from the health insurance.
So, the employer needs to inquire about incapacity for work data from the health insurance, wait for the transmission, and then manually verify those. Even with solutions through payroll programs like DATEV, it involves up to 30 steps before a sick leave case can be closed. In other words, it results in significant workload for HR managers.
eAU Query 100% Automated
Employees submit sick leave notifications independent of location and time. When a sick note is entered in HRlab, it automatically initiates a data query with the health insurance company and directly stores the feedback information in the system. This allows HR managers to easily access the data centrally without any administrative effort.
Introducing: 100% Automated eAU Query
We believe there's a better way, and that's precisely where our solution in HRlab comes in. We handle the eAU query 100% digitally and completely independent of third-party providers.
Employees enter their illnesses independently, just as usual. Visiting a doctor then automatically initiates the eAU query and sends the digital certificate to the respective health insurance. Once approved, health insurances send this approved sick leave to HRlab. All fully automated and without any workload for HR managers. The process now looks like this:
- Employees report sick through HRlab and consult a doctor accordingly. If necessary, a certificate of incapacity for work is issued.
- The eAU is directly transmitted from the doctor's office to the respective health insurance.
- The query of relevant data from the health insurance now occurs automatically, and HR managers receive a notification once the eAU query has been successfully verified.
The HR department no longer has to manually query and enter the collected sick leave notifications one by one at the health insurance each month. The best part: Our solution is certified by health insurance companies, allowing us to react to potential future changes in the eAU process in real-time. And: You benefit from this service without any additional costs.