Since mid-2020, there has been a temporary paramedical rehabilitation care scheme for people with long-term COVID-19 symptoms. Initially, this scheme ran until August 1, 2021. On the advice of C-support, among others, it was extended until August 1, 2022, and subsequently until August 1, 2023. Recently, the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) decided to extend the scheme once again until January 1, 2024. The Minister intends to extend rehabilitation care until January 1, 2025, as also stated in the Spring Memorandum and in the parliamentary letter of May 30. Whether that extension will actually take place depends on the research into the effectiveness of rehabilitation care.
Treatment times
The scheme has been extended, the treatment periods remain the same. A maximum has been set for the number of treatments for which reimbursement applies. This recovery care lasts a maximum of six months and can consist of physiotherapy or exercise therapy (max. 50 treatments), occupational therapy (max. 10 hours), dietetics (max. 7 hours) and speech therapy (no maximum). The care is adapted to the personal situation and reimbursed from the basic insurance. Patients do pay a deductible for this. The practitioners report to the general practitioner on the progress of the treatments. After approximately 3 months, the general practitioner assesses whether and how the care should be continued.
The rules that apply to paramedical recovery care:
- You can request a referral for paramedical recovery care up to six months after your acute illness.
- Paramedical recovery care lasts a maximum of six months. Sometimes you can get a second treatment period of recovery care. This is possible with a referral from the medical specialist if there is demonstrable long-term damage such as a permanent lung defect, permanent shortening of tendons or muscles or nerve disorders.
- A second treatment period can also be started with a referral from the GP in the following cases:
- If you have been able to do little work in the first months of the paramedical recovery care trajectory, due to serious consequences of COVID-19 or (necessary treatments for) other complaints. As a result, there has been too little time for good recovery care.
- If, after a period of increasing recovery, you experience a setback that partially undoes the recovery that has already occurred.
- If, after a considerable time after a course of treatment by a therapist (usually physiotherapy or exercise therapy), it appears that there is a need for care from a second or third therapist. In some cases, this therapist is still called in, but there is little time left for an adequate treatment program. And in other cases, this care does not come about before the end of the treatment period for paramedical recovery care of six months.
- The extension of the recovery care must start within four months after the first period of recovery care. Otherwise the results from the first six months are no longer useful.
- Are you not eligible for the paramedical recovery care scheme? Then you will now receive reimbursement for normal care from the basic package: speech therapy, occupational therapy (max. 10 hours) and advice from a dietician (max. 3 hours). Do you have additional insurance for physiotherapy, for example? Then you will receive reimbursement from the additional insurance.
Visit the website of the Dutch Healthcare Institute for more information about the paramedical rehabilitation care scheme.
