Should Sick Notes be Required for Short-Term Illnesses?

The Canadian Medical Association is calling for sick notes not to be required for short-term or casual illnesses, citing the need for them as a 'human resource' issue rather than a medical one.

As the cold and flu season sets in, the CMA has released a report highlighting the current system's inefficiency. It argues that requiring a doctor's note for short-term illnesses that do not need medical intervention is a "wasteful use of scarce health care resources." Instead, it suggests that employers and employees or students and educational institutions resolve these issues directly.

There is a shortage of family doctors in Canada, so getting a sick note for many is difficult, and employees will come to work sick. It's a lot of burden on the ill individual to find a doctor who can see them and provide a sick note within the time that they need to rest and recover from their illness.

As many as one-third of Canadians needed a sick note for their employer for a short-term illness last year. That's around 12.5 million sick notes employers needed to ensure their employee's absence was due to a legitimate illness, not absenteeism. And 44 percent of those who took the Abacus Data survey commissioned by the CMA said that doctor's notes were required for any length of illness.

The CMA believes that it increases administrative tasks, which, while taking a small amount of time for one patient, add up to hundreds of hours for 12.5 million sick notes.

Reasons why sick notes are harmful, according to the CMA report, include:

1. Impact on patients

  • Risk to others: others may get sick as patients travel to receive a sick note.
  • Financial strain: Patients incur costs for a consultation (cost of note, parking, etc.) and potential wage loss.
  • Exacerbated health inequities

2. Impact on Doctors

  • Negative professional experience
  • Reduced availability of doctors
  • Overuse of healthcare resources
  • Medical-legal and ethical concerns

3. Impact on the healthcare system

  • The strain on resources:
  • Reduced access to care

4. Impact on the workplace

  • Inability to achieve objective
  • Decreased productivity
  • Increased risk of errors:
  • Impact on co-workers
  • Extended absence
  • Erosion of trust

The CMA report suggests changing legislation, having educational institutions or employers use alternatives to medical notes to police absenteeism, and not having doctors validate something that doesn't need medical intervention or expertise so they can prioritize medically necessary clinical work.

Resources:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/why-a-group-of-canadian-doctors-says-workplace-sick-notes-need-to-go-1.7087329

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6548825

https://globalnews.ca/news/10834000/sick-notes-canada-workplace/

https://policybase.cma.ca/link/policy14523