Multipurpose medical certificate. Ombudsman recommends changes to the Government to eliminate significant delays that compromise benefits

The Ombudsman, Maria Lúcia Amaral, sent a recommendation to the Minister of Health proposing a revision of the legal regime for issuing Multipurpose Disability Medical Certificates (AMIM), as well as clearer and more comprehensive disclosure of its purpose and scope.

This recommendation follows the reception of complaints in increasing numbers, particularly in the last two years, the majority focusing on the delay in holding a medical board for a much longer period than the 60 days established by law.

Despite the enormous effort made by public health doctors to hold medical boards in order to cope with the strong growth in requests for attestations, the delays in issuing AMIM even exceed twelve months.

This delay compromises, sometimes definitively, the access of interested parties to benefits of various kinds granted by law. It should be noted that, for example, the Social Inclusion Benefit (PSI) only begins to be due after the presentation of AMIM. This fact, combined with the delay in issuing this document, also led to a recommendation to the Minister of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security.

In the recommendation sent to the Minister of Health, the Ombudsman pointed out measures that would make it possible to reduce bureaucracy and speed up the issuing of AMIM:

a) Strengthening information on what AMIM is, to whom it is addressed and for what purpose, so that all those who fit the legal criteria may have access to it, but also minimizing unfounded applications;

b) The automatic issuing of AMIM by the hospital service responsible for the diagnosis of oncologic disease, eliminating the need for a medical board that only verifies that diagnosis has occurred;

c) Revision of the organic model for issuing AMIM, establishing as a rule the competence of a single physician who integrates a public health unit.

The Ombudsman also reminds the Minister of Health of issues previously raised that have not yet been adequately resolved, specifically:

1) The insufficient protection of rights related to mobility, in the case of cancer patients;

2) The inadequacy of the table of incapacities in use, that aims at the consequences of an accident at work or professional illness, for the broader purposes of AMIM;

3) The need to adopt a documental model of attestation that safeguards the privacy reserve, not indicating without necessity which items of the table of incapacities apply to the specific case and thus protecting personal data of such a sensitive nature as health data.

To read the entire recommendation click here [in Portuguese only].