Temporary disability: information for workers

These periods will be considered as temporary disability due to common illness, regardless of their treatment for the economic benefit as an exceptional assimilation to the contingency of accident at work.

• The Public Health Service of the Autonomous Community, to which the worker is linked according to their address, will be responsible for issuing the sick leave, confirmation and discharge reports.

• Despite being issued as common diseases, they will be treated, only for economic purposes, as the cases arising from accidents at work.

• If the Public Health Service has issued the corresponding confirmation report or, if applicable, discharge report, the INSS will proceed to pay the temporary disability benefit automatically without the need for you to submit the confirmation and/or discharge reports.    
• The period covered by the above-mentioned confirmation and/or discharge reports will be paid with the centralised monthly payroll, as was the case before the extraordinary situation of COVID-19 containment measures.

• However, the National Social Security Institute can only issue payment if the corresponding confirmation and/or discharge reports have been issued beforehand.

• If you do not receive payment, you should contact the Public Health Service (SPS) to find out if the confirmation and/or discharge report has been issued and to resolve, if applicable, the issue of the report, since the SPS is the competent body to issue confirmation and/or discharge reports.

• The full salary on the day of the sick leave will be paid by the employer, regardless of whether or not there has been any actual work done on the day of the medical sick leave.
• From the following day onwards, the entity that protects the professional contingency of the company's workers will be responsible for the temporary disability.

Medical assistance and medical report control will be carried out by the Public Health Service.

• The date of the causal event shall be that on which the isolation or illness of the worker is agreed, without prejudice to the fact that the sick leave report is issued after that date.

•  For those periods of isolation or illness that have occurred prior to the entry into force of  Royal Decree-Law 6/2020 of 10 March (date of entry into force: 12 March 2020), the application of the above shall be implemented retroactively to the date on which the isolation or diagnosis of the disease has been agreed. Therefore, the financial benefit for temporary disability that was caused at that time must be considered as a situation assimilated to an accident at work.

• If you are receiving temporary disability benefit  and you are included in an ERTE work cessation or reduction procedure, your measures will not affect you until you are medically discharged.

• You will continue to receive a temporary disability benefit, which will continue to be paid by your employer as a delegated payment.

The benefit for temporary disability will be paid by the Public Service of State Employment (SEPE), by delegation of the Spanish National Social Security Institute (INSS) or by the Social Marine Institute if it involves a seafarer. Its amount will be equal to the unemployment benefit, with the corresponding consumption of benefit days.

• The INSS will not issue discharge resolutions after the 365-day duration of temporary disability until the state of alarm ends.

• The issue of temporary disability extension resolutions is also temporarily suspended so the company will continue to pay the delegated benefit until the INSS decides on the incapacitating status of this worker, once the state of alarm ends.

• Therefore, the worker need not complete any formalities to continue receiving temporary disability benefit as the company must continue to make delegated payments as to date until the 365-day duration ends. Neither must the worker request confirmation reports as the Public Health Services is not obliged to issue them after 365 days.

• The company will pay the delegated payment for temporary disability proportional to the part-time working hours, and the Public Service of State Employment (SEPE) will pay the part proportional to unemployment, similar to what happens in cases of pluri-employment.
• The amount to be paid by SEPE will be equal to the unemployment benefit, consuming the relevant days of benefit.

• If INSS was responsible for temporary disability payments at the time of opting for the Mutual Society, payment must still be made by the INSS after this option.

• If temporary disability applies after the Mutual Society option or you suffer a relapse of the previous temporary disability, the Mutual Society will assume management and payment for that temporary disability.