Sickness leave

The physician’s licence guarantees the accuracy of the sickness leave certificates (AU) that we issue. A medical condition must be present for an AU to be issued. AUs may only be issued after personal contact with the patient. A retroactive certificate is generally not possible. If you fall ill on a Friday or at the weekend and your employer requires an AU for that day, you will unfortunately have to attend the on-call medical service. If you then come to us on Monday, we can only issue an AU for past days on presentation of a corresponding medical certificate.

An AU is generally not issued for plannable medical examinations. In such cases your employer is required to release you from work for any necessary examinations. The treating physician will provide a medical certificate as proof. If, for organisational reasons, you cannot go to work before or after the examination, your employer must either release you for the entire day or you have to take a day of leave.

The law allows up to three days of illness before a medical certificate has to be presented. However, employers have the right to demand proof from the very first day. Please clarify with your employer from when you have to provide proof.

Certificate from the hospital

Hospitals are also entitled to issue AUs for the duration of the inpatient stay and for up to one week thereafter. If you present the discharge letter and come to our consultation no later than the next working day after discharge, we can also issue the AU retroactively from the day of admission as stated in the discharge letter. In case of a transfer between departments within the hospital, please make sure that either the letters from all departments are available or that the entire stay is confirmed in a separate certificate.

Long-term AU beyond 6 weeks

If an AU has to be extended, you should attend the practice no later than the next working day after the previous AU has ended; otherwise you risk losing the sickness benefit payments. Please come for the extension before the AU expires. If the first certificate was issued by a different physician, please bring a copy with you.