SOCIAL SECURITY: It's health that determines longer working lives

Can age be an asset?

Age is first and foremost an asset. We absolutely cannot think that we are older and can't do something anymore. We have to see our potential. Age is the most important asset.

For age to be an asset, health is needed. What solutions could prolong healthy working life? We know that Social Security has prepared the Active 50+ program. What are the effects of this program?

Yes, indeed. We have created the Active 50+ program. This is an initiative that brings together in one place information on the barriers and benefits for mature people 50+, because this is a group that still has 10-15 years until retirement. Therefore, there is time to think about what that retirement future will be like. First of all, we educate and provide knowledge about pension benefits: what does the pension depend on, what does it consist of, what to do to increase it. We talk about our activities in disability prevention and rehabilitation. Taking care of health is the basis of professional activity. The therapeutic rehabilitation carried out within the framework of Social Security disability prevention is a program that is aimed at preventing inability to work and the return of the ability to work.

We rehabilitate for musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, respiratory and many other conditions that have a major impact on health. And health is, above all, the basis for continued professional activity. We are committed to giving the opportunity for voluntary prolongation of professional activity, also taking into account an empathetic approach to our limitations. All this we are doing is in line with the conclusion of the Council of the European Union, which last year, during our presidency, proposed a provision that first and foremost talks about vocational activation, about adapting working conditions to the capabilities, especially of older or more mature people, and taking care of health and continuous training.

We have also established, at the Social Security Board, a group of experts that works within the framework of the Vocational Activation Team, which also develops and prepares, discusses, analyzes the barriers, benefits of working longer, and gives recommendations to encourage voluntary vocational activity.

Who can benefit from rehabilitation and do people know that you offer rehabilitation? Rehabilitation is generally associated with the National Health Fund and not the Social Security Administration.

Yes, this is true. Most often people associate rehabilitation with the National Health Fund. On the other hand, the Social Insurance Institution does a lot to talk a lot about rehabilitation with the Social Insurance Institution, due to the fact that the basis of this rehabilitation is to restore the ability to work. So, often doctors on longer sick leave themselves suggest during the adjudication of L4, or the collection of disability benefits or rehabilitation benefits, to use this rehabilitation and refer to it. This rehabilitation is free of charge for insured persons, so all working people who pay social security contributions have the right to free rehabilitation with the Social Security Administration in case of threatened inability to work.