Abstract

Background: Training pension was introduced into the Polish social security system on September 1, 1997. It is granted to a person who has permanently lost the ability to work in his or her current vocation, but after an appropriate retraining may do another profession. The aim of this study was to assess the compatibility between ruling of job retraining and medical certification rules. An effort was also made to evaluate the "effectiveness" of issued recommendations expressed by the number of retrained people. Material and Methods: In total, 300 cases of retraining ruling issued by an evaluating doctor or medical commission, registered in 2009, were analyzed. Retraining pension was granted to 219 persons. Results: Of the 300 rulings under study, over 35% were found groundless. In 52 cases (23.74%) (219 of them were awarded a retraining pension) there is information about completed retraining (training) and in 24 (10.95%) about referral to a specific course and its duration, but there is no information whether the insured person has completed the training course. In 2 (0.91%) cases the insured persons continued to collect retraining pension (from 21 and 30 months). 141 people were not retrained even though they had been granted a training pension. Conclusions: A significant percentage (over 35%) of rulings were issued improperly. It is caused by the ignorance of the rules of medical certification and binding regulations in this area. The number of training courses on the principles of issuing retraining rulings and current laws should be increased. Med Pr 2012;63(4):431-440

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