The Cabinet of Ministers has tightened controls on sick leave and introduced checks on medical certificates

Ukraine is significantly tightening controls over the issuance and renewal of sick leave certificates. On Thursday, May 28, the Cabinet of Ministers approved amendments to CMU Resolution No. 185 of March 3, 2023, expanding the scope of monitoring and involving independent authorized physicians in inspections through the Electronic Health Care System (ESOS).

This is reported by the Judicial and Legal Newspaper.

According to the government’s new decision, not only final sick leave certificates but also the underlying primary documents that served as the basis for their issuance—specifically, medical opinions on temporary incapacity for work—will now be subject to thorough review. To ensure the objectivity of the review process, the Cabinet of Ministers has introduced the key principle of extraterritoriality. This means that the analysis of medical documents will be conducted by a doctor practicing in a completely different region of the country than the one where the patient received medical care and was issued a sick leave certificate.

The verification mechanism will operate through the ESOS system, which will automatically select authorized specialists to evaluate the documents. At the same time, medical experts will receive fully depersonalized data on patients and institutions, eliminating the risk of bias or corrupt collusion. The requirements for creating and maintaining an official list of such authorized doctors will be approved by the Board of the Pension Fund of Ukraine, subject to mandatory coordination with the National Health Service of Ukraine (NHSU).

In addition to the digitized process, the new document separately regulates the specifics of conducting inspections and the procedure for documenting results for those sick leave certificates that are still issued in traditional paper form. Government officials have also clearly clarified and brought the procedure for appealing decisions made based on the results of such inspections into compliance with the Law of Ukraine “On Administrative Procedure.”

Meanwhile, sick leave payments have begun to be made under the new rules.

Pregnant Ukrainian women can receive maternity benefits abroad.