But I don’t know that. I’m not putting my reputation on the line if I haven’t personally seen or spoken with my patient. And any doc who does is certifying something he doesn’t know firsthand. And that’s unprofessional.
Besides, even if I see them, how can I credibly judge that the patient has nausea or headache so severe that it precludes working? In over 90% of such complaints, the patient appears normal. It’s not my call to judge them too sick to work in such cases, it is their own call. I’ll verify that they were seen for such and such complaint, and when appropriate note that such complaints tend to resolve within X amount of time, but my note will still say that he states he’s got a horrible headache and can’t work.
I’m there to care for my patient’s medical needs, not advocate for whatever they tell me to.
BTW, it irks the hell out of me that companies pull this “nanny” stuff by demanding a doctor’s note for a single-day absence.
It’s well documented that the vast majority of acute illnesses are transient, with the worst being over in 3 days, and generally don’t need medical intervention.
Now if a patient tells us that he’s so sick he’s been unable to work for 3 days in a row, then that’s another story. They need a decent evaluation and possibly a visit to me or a colleague. Or if they say they’ve only been sick for less than a day but have the worst headache of their life, we’ll send the ambulance to their house to get them.
But those don’t make up a large percentage of what we see for acute illnesses.
No, businesses demand a note from a doc after one days absence not because it is medically necessary, but because they’re trying to cut down on sick leave abuse, and they’re trying to get health care providers to do that for them. And in this day and age of limited resources, it is not good use of health care workers’ time to play this role.
If my patients are really sick, we’ll be there for them. But when the patient knows their illness is self-limited, and doesn’t really need medical attention, we docs hate to be put into place as part of the ‘work police team’ for a business who’s requiring this not for medical, but work productivity and sick-leave abuse concerns.
As a side note, I had a university professor (initials NH from Binghamton University) who would not let a person make-up an exam without a doctors note. Unfortunately she was not consistent with this policy which led to me falling into a trap.
I overslept one day and missed class (and an exam).
I go to the next class and she makes an announcement about make-ups being setup; see her after class. After class a handful of students queue up.
NH: Why’d you miss the test?
Student1: I was sick in bed.
NH: Makeup’s at 5pm tomorrow, next, why’d you miss the test?
Student2: I was ill.
NH: Makeup’s at 5pm tomorrow, next, why’d you miss the test?
Me: (embarassed to admit I overslept) Uh, I was sick.
NH: Did you see a doctor?
Me: (totally thrown for a loop), uh, yeah.
NH: Bring a doctor’s note to the makeup at 5pm tomorrow.
Needless to say I took a zero. My roommate suggested I bluff my way through by just showing up and feigning forgetfulness (Oh, I left it home).
I do not consider it my role to act as the work police. If someone misses one day of work because they say they were ill, I’ll tend to write them a note without mentioning a diagnosis (not really the company’s business IMHO) – “Mr/Ms. X was seen today in the emergency department. I understand (s)he missed work today. (S)he should be able to return to full duties tomorrow.” If they have missed a lot of time, I’d want to see a lot more objective symptoms.
If someone said they had a bad hangover, I might still write them a note (thank you for your honesty), but I’d probably only do it once, and I might politely lecture them about responsibility, yada yada.
This thread got a bit of topic.
Can I get some sort of answer to this question…
If you are in a job where you need a doctors cert for any absences due to health concerns, would a doctor give you a cert for a hangover?
As someone here said if I went to a doctor complaining of nausea, headaches and other symptoms of a hangover( but not smelling of alcohol), the doctor would give me a cert.
As I said, I would probably give you a note for a hangover, where you missed one day of work. I’d probably only do this once, though. Not if you came asking for a hangover cert twenty times a year. The answer would depend on the doctor.
My situation is similar to some of the other Australians who have posted here. I get ten days’ sick leave per year (accumulative). Five days don’t need a certificate (unless I take three or more in a row, or it’s something like a Friday between a public holiday Thursday and a weekend), and five days need the medical certificate. It’s common knowledge that most every employee has a “tame doctor”, and also that when you’re too sick to go to work, you’re too sick to visit your GP. This means that the five days the person doesn’t provide a certificate for are likely to be genuine illness, and the five days with a certificate are the bogus ones.
I know two doctors who will give medical certificates no questions asked. With national health insurance, this means that my employer’s anal policies are costing the tax payer $25 every time I take a sick day.
This worked for me. I was in the Navy at the time. In the Navy, for sure, and, I believe, the other US services, you can’t call in sick, but have to go to sick call – the military version of urgent care. I went in, complained of my specific symptoms – which don’t include headache, for me, I just get violently nauseous with a hangover – and got a sick-in-bed chit. For the Navy, a sick-in-bed chit meant just that – if I’d been caught out and about I’d have been in trouble.
I did this twice, BTW, once at one command, then a second time at a different command. The first time, sick call was quite near my work, so I went in and dropped off my sick-in-bed chit and then went home. Second time, sick call was on another base entirely, so I phoned in to work from sick call and told them I had a chit and they told me to go to bed and bring the chit to work with me the next day.
My dad worked at a factory with a doctor’s-note-to-call-in-sick requirement. It was a pretty unpopular policy with most of the guys, but it didn’t bother Dad much, seeing as he was a Navy retiree and used to the sick-call thing. Also, he was lucky – my mom ran a home daycare at the time and several of her ‘parents’ were doctors. Dad was sick enough to stay home from work a couple of times (bad head colds both times), and one of mom’s doctor-dads wrote him a note both times.
I had a professor that really screwed me over with a policy like this. I missed an exam because I had jury duty. Our conversation went something like this:
Me: Can I make up the exam I missed?
Prof: Do you have a note, from the health center, signed by a doctor?
Me: I have a note from the state, signed by a judge
Prof: That’s not good enough
I got a zero for that exam.
The lesson here is: don’t lie. And if you’re going to shade the truth (i.e. state that you were sick vs. oversleeping), for God’s sake, don’t tell a lie that is easily verified.
I would have gone back to the professor and told her that I had misspoken or misunderstood the question, and that while I was sick, I hadn’t felt the need to actually go to the doctor. Heck, tell the prof that when you spoke to her, you were still recovering from your illness and were “out of it.” Act apologetic for the “misunderstanding.”
That is absolutely unacceptable on the part of the professor. I would have gone to war over this, going to to the prof’s supervisor and upper management if necessary.
Also, in my university experience, because most classes consisted of 2-3 exams plus a final exam, which together typically counted for 90% of the grade (with homework counting for the remaining 10%), a zero on an exam would virtually guarantee failing the class.
So I can’t comprehend just walking away and taking a zero on an exam without putting up a huge fight.
When I lived in Ontario my family doctor was miserable about giving notes. Actually she was miserable about everything. I was off for a long time for a workplace injury and she was tired of filling out forms and getting told what she needed to do (put my limitations in, forcast time of healing etc) She actually wrote a note to my employee health services nurse that said “Dear “Doctor” Jane Doe, I release this patient “Mona Lisa Simpson” to your care. Since you seem to know better than I do you can fill out all her paperwork from here on.”
Since we are looking at differences around the World: Here in the UK you can take a week off without what used to be called a ‘sick’ note and is now called a ‘fit’ note. Employers usually have their own forms for you to fill in after a short illness, called ‘self certification.’
It will depend on your contract whether, or how much, you get paid while off work. The minimum for a full time employee is £88.45 a week after the first four days, but many employers (the good ones) have far better terms. After four weeks, an employer can insist on an assessment to see if you will be fit to return to work.
Of course, many people take advantage of employers with generous schemes. The NHS and other government bodies are especially generous. Firing someone for taking too much time off sisk can lead to a tribunal so sensible managers will use other methods to get rid of dead wood.
And, altho it does cut down on sick leave abuse, it means more really sick workers are coming in, thus spreading the flu or whatever- thus in the end, the stupid-ass employer ends up with* more *sick days taken, not less.
It’s a really fucking stupid policy.
More than 3 days? Yes, doctors note.
Otherwise, give the employees so much sick leave and let them take it as they see fit.
I’m glad I went to college. I would murder people for asking for “proof” of my illness. Hell, I call in sick sometimes just because I feel bad not giving them more notice for a spur of the moment vacation day. That’s not abuse, it’s using the benefits I have earned. It’s like asking for “proof” that you didn’t spend your money on “unapproved” items each payday. Screw you, it’s my money and I’ll use it as I see fit.
Your job as an employer is to ensure that you have enough trained employees to accomplish what needs to be done even if one or two call in sick on a given day. Because people get sick. Hell, even robots and machines go on the fritz sometimes. It’s called maintenance costs. Take them into account or continue to fail as a business owner.
Not letting people call off for illness without a note is like continuing to use a defective cash register that shreds all your money because the manufacturer didn’t issue a recall yet. It illustrates a very poor understanding of business, economics, biology and human behavior.
The difference may be in your health care system, vs. the ‘system’ we have in the USA. Here, you can’t get in to see your doctor for at least 2-3 weeks. Unless you go to the Emergency Room, and that may cost more than a days’ pay for many people.
So the requirement to have a doctors note for even a single day missed is really just a way of forcing people to go to work sick.
When I was working for the County Courts system, we had a similar situation.
The juror reported it to court staff, who mentioned it to the Judge. Who got very incensed! He issued a bench warrant for the professor, and sheriff’s deputies actually went out that very morning and arrested him in the midst of a lecture. He was hauled in front of the Judge, and got this: “I am inclined to hold you in criminal contempt for interfering with the court process. Do you have any defense you wish to give to this charge?”
And despite his explanation, the Judge found him guilty, and sentenced him to 30 days in jail, beginning immediately! So the professor spent the rest of that day, and the night in the county jail. (The next day, they authorized releasing him from jail, so he could go to work. But he was required to bring in a note from his Department Head, each week of the remaining 29 days.
Judges do not like being told that their courts don’t count.
I was thinking about this. It is definitely a pain to schedule appointments. But I recently had an ear problem as was able to get an appointment for that day. But the idea of going to see the doctor when you have a bad cold and are staying home for a couple of days seems to me to be just ludicrous.
In Finland sick leave is paid leave so they don’t want people to abuse the system. That said for most places it’s enough to see a nurse unless you need a longer sick leave than 5 days. They pretty much rubber stamp the shorter sick leave requests, I’ve never had it denied even when I had fever and flu several times in the same winter.
Obviously it’s not always possible to get an appointment in time especially for people like me who work nights and my bosses have been pretty mellow about it. On the other hand a friend of mine who is a cleaner has told me quite a few stories of being forced to take a bus to see an actual doctor while having high fever. Lots of fun, that.