Swedish social insurance officers' experiences of difficulties in assessing applications for disability pensions – an interview study

Abstract

Background: In this study the focus is on social insurance officers judging applications for disability pensions. The number of applications for disability pension increased during the late 1990s, which has resulted in an increasing number of disability pensions in Sweden. A more restrictive attitude towards the clients has however evolved, as societal costs have increased and governmental guidelines now focus on reducing costs. As a consequence, the quantitative and qualitative demands on social insurance officers when handling applications for disability pensions may have increased. The aim of this study was therefore to describe the social insurance officers' experiences of assessing applications for disability pensions after the government's introduction of stricter regulations.

Satisfaction of staff of Swiss insurance companies with medical appraisals: a cross sectional study

“…Satisfaction had been similarly high for some items (for example, 89% of appraisals with complete response to key questions), but long waiting times for every third appraisal had been criticized, as well. Studies from Scandinavia have also highlighted time consuming waiting times and partly insufficient content of certificates for the social insurance [8] or coordination problems between social insurance officers and assessors [9]. With our quantitative approach, we could confirm central findings of this valuable qualitative data for the Swiss setting.…”

Cooperation between gatekeepers in sickness insurance – the perspective of social insurance officers. A qualitative study

“…SIOs had the final decision on entitlement to sickness benefits, however their decisions were based on the sickness certificates issued by physicians. Problems with deficient certificates were frequently mentioned by the SIOs in this study, and it has also been identified as a problem in relation to disability pensions [ 17 ]. The quality of sickness certificates has been found to be poor, and crucial information on medical condition and/or functional capacity was lacking in more than 70% of 2400 issued certificates in a recent Swedish study [ 8 ].…”

“…In reality, factors other than the medical disease are highly related to work capacity and sick-listing, such as age, gender and psychosocial situation of the patients, but also attitudes and interactions between different actors in the process [ 2 , 21 ]. The different attitudes towards sick leave among different actors has been recognized as a source of communication problems [ 17 ], and was mentioned in this study as present both between and within organisations. The sick-listing process is also influenced by other actors such as employers, employment agencies or jobcentres, and the sick-listed.…”

Associations Between Schemes of Social Insurance and Self-Rated Health Comparison: Evidence From the Employed Migrants in Urban China

“…In fact, possibly due to the lack of systematic financing schemes, medical insurance programs were not effective in alleviating the financial burden of healthcare and promoting formal medical utilization among migrant workers (50). Another example showed that the disharmonized social insurance systems caused insured clients to wait unnecessarily in Sweden (51). Thus, the existence of the interaction effect and order of enrollment in insurance schemes could help the employed save economic cost.…”