How do I apply for nursing benefits?

First of all, it is a good idea to know when you can apply for nursing benefits. The law sets out the conditions that must be met for it to be paid. The basic ones are the employee’s participation in sickness insurance and the sick person’s stay at home. If the patient’s condition necessitates a stay in hospital, the nursing allowance could not (or would cease to) be paid. If you are self-employed, then you are not entitled to ordinary short-term care even if you pay sickness insurance. Nor are you entitled to sick pay if you are on your own during the first 14 days of sick leave.

Attendance allowance is most often used in the context of caring for offspring, but it can be used for any member of the household and does not have to be a relative. However, the law is only concerned with human members of the household, so if you have a sick Mick, Azor or Dash, you will unfortunately not be successful in claiming nursing benefits. However, your prospective patient must demonstrably live in the same household as you and their condition should be severe enough to require the care of someone else (these conditions may not be met if a parent is caring for a child under 10).

Procedure for obtaining sick pay

If you are interested in getting nursing care, a doctor must always decide if you need care. Not all parents are keen on having to ‘drag their child to the doctors’ with only a slight cold. In such a case, it is more appropriate to consider some alternative solutions: asking your employer for a home office, calling your grandmother to babysit, or sacrificing two or three days of vacation.

The form needed to apply for sick pay

If you see a doctor and he/she finds that your household member is really ill, then he/she will give you a decision about the need for care. You can sometimes find a model application form for nursing care on the internet, but downloading or pre-filling it would do you no good. It is really up to the doctor to issue the original form.

How to fill in a nursing application form

The form provided has two prongs. The first part of the form is largely completed by the doctor. It is up to you to fill in Part B of the application for nursing home allowance, giving your name, address and birth number, whether or not you live with your partner and whether or not you are caring for a child under 16. And then fill in information about the child. There are no tricky details on the form. You then take it to your employer without delay (if your situation allows, it can be delivered in person or put in an envelope and sent). Your employer will attach the relevant attachments and send it to the District Social Security Office.

The second part of the form is called the decision to end the need for treatment (care). Keep this for the time being and at the final health check, the doctor will mark the date the sick household member’s need for care ended on it. It is then up to you to complete the other side of the form and give it back to your employer. After completing Part C, the latter will deliver it to the relevant Social Security Office.

The doctor can also give you a certificate of continuing need for treatment if the treatment lasts for a longer period of time. The attending doctor will also issue this form if there is a change of carers on the day before the day from which the other person took over. You should also send this form to your employer if appropriate.

Application for nursing allowance in case of school closure

If your child’s school is closed under the age of 10 because of an accident, epidemic or emergency, for example, you may also be entitled to a nursing allowance, even though you may not be “nursing” your child directly. The form is issued solely by the school. The school will usually inform you via its website or by telling parents how and when to collect it and you will then give it to your employer, who will in turn give it to the relevant Social Security office. This form also has two parts, but the second part is only used if there is a change of carers.

Application for long-term care allowance

Long-term care benefits allow you to care for a family member who has been discharged from hospital (after a minimum seven-day hospital stay) and their doctor has decided that full-time care is necessary for more than 30 days. This could be, for example, the long-term illness of a young child, but it could also be a serious post-accident condition of an adult that requires care from others, such as attendance by social care workers or post-accident rehabilitation, etc. However, these are usually relatively sudden situations and this benefit will allow the family to be able to care for the relative and also to have time to consider what to do next (working with a care facility, applying for a care allowance under the Social Services Act, etc.).

In order to qualify for the allowance, it is necessary either to be related to the sick person, or to be a partner or companion, or to live in the same household as the sick person.

Conditions for entitlement to long-term care allowance

A condition of entitlement for an employee is the employee’s continued participation in sickness insurance for at least 90 calendar days in the last 4 months. In the case of self-employed persons (self-employed), the condition of voluntary participation in the sickness insurance of the self-employed person for at least 3 months immediately preceding the date of entry into long-term care must be met. The self-employed person must not be self-employed while receiving this benefit.

If you want to apply for long-term care benefits, a decision on the need for long-term care must be made by a doctor from the hospital where your family member (or companion) has been hospitalised, and the person being treated (if he or she is an adult) must agree to this at the same time. The applicant must fill in a Long-Term Care Application form.

The employee forwards the documents to his/her employer, who sends them and other documents to the District Social Security Administration. Self-employed persons forward them directly to “their” Social Security Office, with which they are registered.