Scrap sick notes for minor illnesses like colds, says CMA

The Canadian Medical Association wants governments to scrap sick note requirements for employees with minor sniffles, stomach aches or other short-term illnesses.

In a position paper published on Monday, the CMA said the notes burden physicians with unnecessary administrative tasks, and eliminating the requirement could prevent as many as 12.5 million unnecessary health-care interactions a year.

A new survey of 1,500 working adults conducted by Abacus Data for the CMA showed that in the last year, around one-third of working Canadians were asked by their employers to produce a sick note for a short-term absence at least once.

"That's frustrating for the doctors, because we want to be able to spend the limited time that we have caring for patients who really need medical care, not filling out paperwork to address a human resource issue," said CMA president Dr. Joss Reimer in an interview with CBC.

"It's also frustrating for the people who need to come in, because if you're having a migraine or you have a cold, the last thing you want to do is leave your house and have to go to a clinic and see a doctor."

In many instances, Reimer says, patients see a doctor after their symptoms have already subsided, because they need to bring a note to work.

"There's no way for me to verify whether or not yesterday they had a headache, but yet I'll write a note basically saying, 'They told me that they were sick.'"

"It's a waste of time for us, and a waste of time for them," said Dr. Michael Green, president of the College of Family Physicians of Canada. The college has been calling for employers not to request a sick note for short absence for years.

"Our job as doctors is to take care of people who are sick," said Green. "It's not to be the employers' police service or fraud detection service."

Green said family doctors already deal with heavy workloads and too much paperwork — which he says contributes to a shortage in primary care workers.

"I think we need an all-hands-on-deck approach to where we are with our shortage. Every little thing that we can do — sick notes, other forms, making them simpler, those sorts of things — each thing helps."

But some employers said they need a way to keep workers honest if their behaviour seems fishy, such as consistently calling in sick on Fridays. 

Corinne Pohlmann, executive vice-president of advocacy for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business lobby group, suggested other ways to ensure people aren't using sick days for vacation, like having a different provider write the notes, such as a pharmacist or nurse practitioner. 

"We've also been open to the idea of attestation, but the attestation would have to have some ... legal recourse to it," she said.