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Covid-19: already more than a million work stoppages in two weeks

2020-03-24T12:36:22.001Z


With the measures put in place by the government, the National Health Insurance Fund recorded in fifteen days a record number of


With the appearance of the Covid-19 at the end of January, part of France suddenly stopped working, coerced and forced. Forced to babysit children that closed schools can no longer accommodate since Monday, March 16. Forced to confine themselves and avoid any contamination, in accordance with the injunctions of the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron. In this unprecedented context, the government decided to extend the benefit of work stoppages and, secondly, to eliminate the waiting period of three days to prevent people at risk from refusing to isolate themselves.

Covid-19 and collateral effects oblige, part of France is on sick leave compensated. But not on sick leave. According to the director of the National Health Insurance Fund (CNAM), Nicolas Revel, "in the 15 days that a specific device has been open, we have recorded 838,000 work stoppages of people who have to stay at home to keep their (s) child (ren) and unable to telecommute ”.

The Cnam has set up a second channel to declare work stoppages which this time concern fragile people who must isolate themselves to protect themselves. "The High Council of Public Health recommended to people who cannot work at home and suffering from physical weaknesses, particularly people with long-term illness, to stop working and to confine themselves," recalls Nicolas Revel.

"No late payment"

Similarly, as a precaution, pregnant women reaching the third trimester of pregnancy are advised to confine themselves. "On this second part, we received 190,000 declarations," continues the director general. Overall, in two weeks, more than a million work stoppage prescriptions were issued in the private sector, either by city doctors or by health insurance. This volume is in addition to the usual “sick leave”. For 2017, according to a study by Health Insurance, 4,928,000 people have benefited from sick leave.

Is there a risk that this influx will affect the timetable for processing cases? "We are currently on an average of 29 days," answers Nicolas Revel, "this is a normal duration. There may be caisses where the deadlines are shorter, others where they are longer, especially in the regions most affected by the pandemic where personnel from the caisses may have had to stop. But all of this will make up for it and there will be no late payments. "

A bill of several hundred million euros

To cope, the National Health Insurance Fund has embarked on a major reorganization to allow the vast majority of its 70,000 employees to telecommute. IT departments are working around the clock to create accounts and access codes for each agent. They are also mobilizing so that the system can withstand this very heavy demand since of 6000 agents who usually work online, within a few days, they will be up to 34,000 simultaneously on the network.

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Today, the daily allowance envelope paid by the Health Insurance for sick leave reaches 8 billion euros per year. How much will this surplus cost? According to a study by the Cnam, in 2017, the cost of these stops was 31.70 euros per day and per beneficiary. At the rate of one million stops, for an average of ten days, the current bill can be evaluated at around 320 million euros. Who will pay ? "This is not a subject for the moment," sweeps Nicolas Revel. It is time for solidarity, to respond to needs and requests. We will see later to do the accounts. "

Source: leparis

All business articles on 2020-03-24

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