The Law Firm’s attorneys provided legal advice and helped to resolve an issue for one of our Clients regarding the necessity of signing a written agreement for health care services concerning employee health surveillance.
The problem arose due to the nature of our Client’s business (a large construction company) and the employment of workers in various, sometimes very distant locations across the country. Signing a single contract for occupational health services, including conducting preventive medical examinations, would have been insufficient and would generate significant costs related to carrying out these examinations in locations far from the employee’s residence or workplace.
Despite initial appearances, this issue was crucial because, under current law, every employer is required to sign a contract for initial, periodic, and control medical examinations of employees, as well as for other health-related services. This contract must be in writing, as required by Article 12 of the Act of June 27, 1997, on Occupational Medicine Services.
Failure to sign such a contract may have negative consequences for the employer, as it is commonly assumed that an employee undergoes medical examinations only in the occupational medicine facility which the employer has a contract with.
Although none of the provisions of the Labor Code or the Occupational Medicine Services Act prohibit an employee from obtaining a medical certificate from a different doctor than the one who the employer has a contract for such services with, it can be inferred from the aforementioned Article 12 of the Occupational Medicine Services Act that the employee is not entitled to submit a “substitute” medical certificate obtained from another doctor.
Moreover, such an action by the employee could even be considered a failure to comply with the obligation to undergo the required medical examinations as per the employer’s direction.
It is also important to note that for a medical examination to be properly conducted, it is not only essential that it must be performed by an authorized occupational health physician but also that there is proper communication between the employer and the occupational medicine unit (the preventive physician) regarding all health hazards in the work positions occupied by the employees undergoing the medical examinations.
Thus, the medical examination should be performed by an occupational medicine unit which the employer has signed a contract with.
Presenting a medical certificate from a different doctor than the one with whom the employer has a signed agreement is not equivalent to fulfilling the obligation to undergo preventive medical examinations.
To protect our Client from potential negative consequences, we recommended signing multiple agreements with several occupational medicine units to both comply with the statutory requirement to send employees for medical examinations to the units which the employer has agreements with and minimize the costs associated with travel for medical exams.