Overview
- The governing coalition listed a proposal to require a medical certificate from the first day of illness and to abolish telephone sick notes in a paper agreed Friday at a meeting in Münster.
- SPD leader and Labour Minister Bärbel Bas publicly questioned the attestation-from-day-one rule and said she will not present implementation proposals until Linnemann issues the related primary-care (Primärversorgung) rules.
- Medical bodies including the Bundesärztekammer and the AOK warned that ending telephone sick notes would push patients with minor respiratory infections into GP waiting rooms, raise contagion risk and overload practices.
- The attestation demand was part of a compromise driven by the Union to reduce recorded sick leave and tied by the SPD to a doctors’ appointment guarantee and stroke-prevention measures, but the final design and timetable remain unresolved.
- If telephone sick notes are curtailed, patients could face more clinic visits and employers could see different reporting of sick days; observers say the coming health‑ministry regulations and renewed coalition talks will determine how large those effects become.