Sick Day from Work to Require Second Opinion

By Gldmeier @gldmeier
Ever take a sick day from work? Of course you have. Who hasn't? Ever taken a day off and called it a sick day? No? Well maybe your boss does not believe you and thinks you called in sick jjust because you don't want to use up your vacation days? You think that's what the doctor's letter is for - to assure your boss that you were really sick? Well, he might not be so assured. After all, maybe your doctor is in cahoots with you and signed a sick day letter just because you asked him to...
A Knesset Committee is considering approving a new rule that would give your employer the right to demand a second doctor's examination by the doctor of your employer's choice. When you submit your doctor's letter confirming your illness, it will not have details of what you were sick with - for reasons of medical privacy. The employer will be able to send you to another doctor, of his choice, to confirm that you were really sick.
It seems the law already allows employers to demand a second doctors visit, but only when the first doctor is a private, non-Kupa, doctor.

Some oppose it saying that just like the suspicion is that an employee is getting a sick note form a friendly doctor when he is really just on vacation, maybe the employer will send him to a friendly doctor who will say the employee was not really sick and wipe away his real sick days.
Another reason for opposition is that this puts all doctors under suspicion of being involved in fraud. If a doctor is suspected of lying or fraud, he can be investigated and dealt with, but pitting doctor against doctor has both ethical and professional problems...
(source: NRG)
Another problem is who will pay the second doctor? A person generally cannot change doctors in the middle of a quarter. I am not quite sure how the details work, but if I have already seen one specific doctor in this period, I cannot go to another doctor (of the same field) in the same period. I think there are exceptions, and maybe an employer's insistence will have to be made an official exception that would allow you to see the second doctor.
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