It is essential to be able to quickly access the facilities provided for by law: civil disability, disability pension, exemptions, economic benefits and job protection. A bureaucratic procedure that INPS, Agenas and Favo are trying to simplify
In Italy three and a half million people live with an oncological diagnosis and about a third continue to carry out their profession. For everyone, and in particular for sick and working family members, it is essential to be able to quickly access the concessions provided by law: legal and economic benefits and job protection pass through the recognition of disability, the bureaucratic process of which is not very simple. But the correct and rapid assessment of disability and handicap simplifies the life of patients and caregivers, already severely distorted by cancer and therapies. Precisely for this reason INPS and AGENAS, together with the Federation of Oncology Volunteer Associations (Favo), have launched a project that aims to develop an operating protocol that is the same for all of Italy which establishes uniform procedures for the issue of the Introductory Telematic Oncology Certificate, and which is issued directly and immediately by the person making the diagnosis.
What exactly is the Introductory Telematic Oncology Certificate?
the necessary prerequisite to start the INPS telematic procedure for the recognition of invalidity and disability and serves to provide the INPS medical-legal commission with all the clinical, diagnostic and therapeutic information useful for a correct assessment of the state of disability connected and consequent to the pathology oncology and related therapies explains the lawyer Elisabetta Iannelli, general secretary of Favo.
When should it be done and why?
Following the oncological diagnosis, the sick person can start the procedure for the recognition by INPS of the invalidity and handicap which are the necessary prerequisites for being able to take advantage of the economic benefits and legal protections, even at work (permits and leave paid), per se for the family caregiver who accompanies him during the oncological path for visits, diagnostic tests and anticancer therapies clarifies Iannelli.
Who releases it?
The certificate completed and sent to INPS by the certifying doctor who can be the specialist (oncologist or surgeon or other specialist) or the family doctor. The INPS, having received the request for assessment of the invalidity and handicap electronically, calls the interested party to visit, but it is also possible that the assessment of the more or less serious condition of disability takes place simply on the basis of the health documentation sent, the so-called assessment “on record” introduced during the pandemic emergency in 2020 as a method of simplifying the assessment without a direct visit in the presence of the patient, the Director General of INPS, Gabriella Di Michele, replies.
What is the correct procedure to follow?
The procedure is divided into two interconnected phases – explains Raffaele Migliorini, director of the INPS Legal Medical Coordination -: the certifying doctor accredited by INPS (general practitioner or specialist doctor) completes the oncology certificate online on the INPS website introductory and important that it signals that it is a neoplastic disease (Law n. 80 of 2006) to activate the preferential lane that ensures the call to visit and the response of the commission within 15 days. The procedure issues a receipt with an identification code that the doctor delivers to the person concerned together with a copy of the digital medical certificate. The patient, personally or through an authorized intermediary (patronates), within 90 days of sending the cancer certificate, must fill in and electronically send the administrative application linked to the introductory certificate to INPS.
What are the current problems and what are the proposed solutions?
Unfortunately, it happens that the introductory specialist certificate is not filled in correctly or that relevant evaluation elements are omitted for the purposes of a correct assessment of the oncological disability – says Iannelli -. It is therefore necessary that the certifying doctors are adequately trained in the use of this certificate and that agreements are activated to this with scientific research institutes and hospitals to make it possible to issue the certificate directly in the treatment centers for cancer patients.
The positive experience in some regions
This model of agreement with the treatment centers has been tested in recent years in some realities of Lazio, Puglia, Piedmont and Emilia Romagna which have confirmed the usefulness and effectiveness of a simplification that fully responds to the patient’s needs. . The innovative pilot experiences, implemented in different ways by some hospitals, leave no doubts about the advantages, for individuals and for the whole system as well: just look at the reduction in time between diagnosis and presentation of the application, from an average of 121 days to 67; or 100% of patients evaluated within 15 days; or the clear reduction in the number of review files. On this basis, we will continue to work jointly with INPS and together with the Regions for the definition of a national protocol that identifies the general criteria for uniform implementation – concludes the Director General of AGENAS, Domenico Mantoan -. it will then be up to the Regions and Autonomous Provinces to implement them in their own areas. We know that in this way we can greatly improve three crucial aspects: first, reducing the latency time between diagnosis and assessment in patients with serious illnesses and sometimes with a short life expectancy; second, to immediately obtain exhaustive clinical information and appropriate clinics for remotely ascertaining commissions (pursuant to art. 29, c. 3 of Law 120/2020) and at no cost to the patient; third, to limit revisions and disputes, without adding to human or economic resources.
May 6, 2022 (change May 6, 2022 | 19:32)
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