The draft Law on Amendments to the Law on Health Insurance envisages several interesting novelties (hereinafter: “the draft Law“), the implementation of which is planned for the next year in the Republic of Serbia, and which is expected to have a significant impact on employees and reduce their administrative burden.

The most important of them is the implementation of the electronic E-sick leave service, which is based on a shortened and significantly simplified procedure related to the opening of sick leave (i.e. temporary incapacity for work) (hereinafter: “the Service“).

Namely, the draft Law stipulates that the certificate of temporary inability to work is electronically submitted to the employer by the selected doctor, with the consent of the insured (i.e. employee), as well as remittances upon termination of sick leave.

The content of the certificate of temporary inability to work

As provided by the applicable regulations, the mentioned certificate contains the date of commencement of temporary incapacity for work and the expected duration of incapacity for work, as well as the cause of incapacity for work, since the calculation of salary compensation depends on it.

Which are the preconditions for exercising the right to use the Service?

In order to use the Service, legal entities (i.e. employers) must be registered for the use of the E-government portal. Furthermore, the legal representative of the legal entity is required to be registered for the use of the E-government portal, and also he/she is obliged to authorize a certain employee in the legal entity who will use the Service, i.e. to compile and deliver a list of such employees.

It is important to note that the employee has the right to choose between whether he/she wants to use the electronic E-sick leave service or still wants to use the current classic model of personal notification of the employee in hard copy. In other words, another precondition for using the service in question is the consent of the employee.

Implementation of the Service

The implementation of this service is expected at the beginning of the implementation of the Law on Amendments to the Law on Health Insurance, which was announced for the beginning of 2022.

For all additional questions related to E-sick leave service, as well as all further information related to it, BOPA is at your disposal.