Amendments and completions to the regulations concerning leaves and social health insurance allowances

The EMERGENCY ORDINANCE no. 74 of June 30^th 2021 was published in the Official Gazette no. 645 of June 30^th 2021 and it concerns the amendment and completion of the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 158/2005 on leaves and social health insurance allowances, for the amendment of art. 299 paragraph (4) of Law no. 95/2006 regarding the health care reform, as well as for establishing certain measures in terms of granting medical leaves.

Among the measures meant to support insured persons, who are temporarily incapacitated for work, we list the following:

• the amendment of the monthly income in the case of natural persons, who do not earn incomes and have optional insurance for leaves and social health insurance allowances (the maximum monthly calculation basis for the social insurance allowances, in the case of those without salary incomes and who wish to have an optional insurance, shall be represented by the average of the monthly gross incomes of the last six months from the 12 month contribution period, up to the limit of three national minimum gross salaries.
  An exception to this rule are the persons with an optional insurance for benefiting from maternity leaves and allowances, for whom the maximum monthly calculation basis for allowances is represented by the average of the insured incomes in the last six months from the 12 month contribution period, up to the monthly value limit of 12 national minimum gross salaries);
• the leave and the allowance for nursing a sick child will be accessible to parents until the child reaches the age of 18, and not 16, as it was regulated until now;
• the persons who travel for personal interest in areas with ongoing pandemic, epidemiological or biological risk with high pathogen, despite knowing this information at the beginning of the travel and who are quarantined when they return to Romania, in order to avoid becoming risk factors for the persons with whom they come into contact, will benefit from an allowance borne from the Single National Social Health Insurance Fund (FNUASS) for a period of 5 days, as opposed to 14 days, as it was regulated until present;
• fines between 6,000 and 11,000 lei are applied in the case of physicians, who issue medical leave certificates in violation of the legal provisions in force, and in the case of physicians who do not draw up a plan for monitoring the patient, the fines range between 5,000 and 10,000 lei;
• the persons with several labour agreements, who submit medical leave certificate(s) to one or more of their employers, but work for the others, shall be fined with amounts ranging between 1,000 and 2,000 lei and will be obliged to return the allowance

The regulations will become effective as of August 1^st and until this date, the enforcement guidelines for ensuring the unitary implementation at national level will also be updated.