Sickness cover for GP/Reimbursement costs for cover
Information relating to practices claiming reimbursement costs for GPs when off sick.
Sickness cover reimbursement for GPs
We have also negotiated important beneficial changes to sickness cover reimbursement. Practices are currently at considerable financial risk of paying for sickness absence of GPs, due to discretionary reimbursement, outdated list-size criteria and the need for cover to be provided by an external locum.
We have secured that sickness cover reimbursement will no longer be a discretionary payment, but a practice entitlement. The qualifying criteria based on list size, which often prevents a practice from being able to claim a payment to cover locum costs, has been removed. Payments will be made after 2 weeks of a GP being absent from the practice due to sick leave. As part of our agreement, existing GPs within the practice can now be used to cover sickness, mirroring existing maternity cover arrangements. The amount payable for sickness cover has also been uplifted to £1734.18 per week in line with current maternity cover arrangements. There will be no medical exclusion criteria for this sickness reimbursement, which we believe will be a very significant benefit to GPs with long-term conditions who currently find sickness cover difficult or expensive to source. It should also reduce practice locum insurance cover expenses, and enable practices to offer better sickness absence terms for salaried GPs.
Maternity cover reimbursement
We have secured agreement that maternity payments will not be subject to a pro-rata application and that in order to secure the payment practices will need only to submit an invoice and either the full amount or maximum payable will be paid.
A useful FAQ's can be viewed here.