Economics seminar: Eligibility screening and incidence of sick-leave-benefit spells

PhD Bo Larsson, Swedish Social Insurance Agency, presents an empirical study of the effect of stricter eligibility screening in the Swedish sick-benefit since 1 November 2020, when a doctor’s certificate was required from day 15 instead of day 22 during a sick-leave.

At the start of Corona pandemic the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (SSIA) decided to extend the period for which individuals could have sick-leave-benefit from day 15 to day 22. The intention was to reduce the number of visits to hospitals and hence contacts between individuals, in turn to mitigate the spread of Covid-19. At SSIA there was concern that laxer screening had led to a larger incidence in the number of sick-leaves. A large fraction of the increase of sick-leaves was in fact sick-days between day 15 and day 21.

In October, when SSIA on the basis of analyses and recommendations from the Public Health Agency of Sweden (PHAS), thought that the worst of the pandemic was over, the screening rules were reverse to the stricter "from-day-15 rule" from the laxer "from-day-22 rule". The anticipation was that this would reduce the number of sick-leave benefits longer than 14 days.

Daily data from SSIA’s database MiDAS from 2016 on sick-leave incidence and daily data from PHAS on number of positive Covid-19 tests and admittances into Intensive Care Units due to Covid-19 are used. The results indicate that the immediate effect from the policy change is a large increase in the incidence of sick-leaves.