Do you have any questions related to vocational rehabilitation or disability pension?
You can reach our experts over the phone at 010 192 100
from Monday to Friday, 9:00–13:00.
If you have received a decision on vocational rehabilitation, you can find the contact details of your personal rehabilitation specialist in your decision.
You can also send a message to a specialist or, for example, check the status of your application in the Varma Online Service.
After your paid sick leave is over, you can apply to Kela for sickness allowance. Discuss your situation with your occupational health care and your employer, and what options you have for returning to work. If you are not in working life, discuss the matter with your attending physician. If you are returning to work, partial sickness allowance from Kela may well be a suitable option. Alternatively, you can apply to Varma for vocational rehabilitation.
If your illness continues for a long time and your sick leave exceeds a consecutive one-year period, you can apply for cash rehabilitation benefit or disability pension.
When you fill in the application in our customer service, you can attach to it the medical statement B written by your physician as well as other documents. You can also submit attachments later on our online service ‘Messages and documents’ page.
You can see how the processing of your application is progressing in our online service, under Pension applications - Follow progress of the processing or Rehabilitation - Check the status of processing. Your filled in application is also available on our online service, under Messages and documents - Decisions and documents.
The average vocational rehabilitation application processing time is approximately three weeks.
The average disability pension application processing time is approximately four weeks. Please note that it may take longer than usual to process your application if we have to wait for additional information that is required to make a decision.
If you are granted vocational rehabilitation, ask for an electonic tax card for social security benefits, if you are receiving the rehabilitation allowance or rehabilitation assistance. Without a tax card, 20–50 per cent tax will be withheld on the rehabilitation allowance and rehabilitation assistance, depending on the amount of the benefit.
Order an electronic tax card for your pension from the Tax Administration, if you receive disability pension or cash rehabilitation benefit or rehabilitation increase alongside it. If you receive rehabilitation increase, ask the tax authority to indicate in the tax card that it also applies to the rehabilitation increase.
Without the tax card we will withhold 40 per cent tax on your pension, cash rehabilitation benefit or rehabilitation increase. We will refund any excess tax withheld from you once we receive your tax card.
Yes, you can work and earn income during a full or partial disability pension and while receiving a full or partial cash rehabilitation allowance, as long as your earnings do not exceed the earnings limit specified in the decision you received.
Read more about working while on disability pension.
You can also work during vocational rehabilitation, according to your earnings limit.
Follow the instructions given in the attachment to your decision. You can submit an appeal on our online service under Pension applications - Notifications - Appeals (appealing against a decision) or Vocational rehabilitation - Appeal (appealing against a decision). You can also send us an appeal as a free-form letter.
You can start a work trial or rehabilitation programme even if you receive cash rehabilitation benefit. We will pay a 33 per cent rehabilitation increase on top of the cash rehabilitation benefit. Contact Varma when you are planning on returning to work through vocational rehabilitation.
When assessing your right to disability pension, we have to apply the law and not just medical expertise. It comes down to the grounds set forth in Finnish legislation for granting disability pension.
Both the treating physician and insurance physician are specialists, but in different fields. The treating physician is familiar with the patient’s state of health and the insurance physician knows the applicable legislation. It is the job of the treating physician to describe the state of health of the patient and to assess the remaining work ability. It is the insurance physician’s task to apply established decision practice and case law when assessing the right to disability pension.
If your accrued earnings-related pension amounts to less than EUR 1,300 per month, it is a good idea for you to apply for disability pension or cash rehabilitation benefit also from Kela. Kela’s disability pension is called national pension. You can apply for both earnings-related pension and national pension using the disability pension application available on our online service. If you apply for national pension, we will send your application to Kela on your behalf. Please note that you cannot apply for partial disability pension from Kela.
When you have received the preliminary vocational rehabilitation decision, it is time to make a rehabilitation plan. You can get help for making the plan from your rehabilitation specialist whose name and contact details are in the preliminary decision.
We can pay a rehabilitation benefit when your rehabilitation programme has started.
When the planned work trial or job coaching has been approved by Varma, we will send you an agreement on workplace rehabilitation as an attachment to the decision on the rehabilitation plan. We will also send a link to the agreement to the contact person at the work trial or job coaching site.
Fill in and sign the agreement and return it to Varma no later than when the workplace rehabilitation begins. The decision on the rehabilitation benefit will be given only when the signed agreement has been received by Varma.
A work trial can be extended on reasonable grounds from one to three months. Send Varma a memo on your occupational health negotiation or a statement from your doctor describing how your work trial is going and what your follow-up plan is.
We pay compensation for your commuting expenses if the commute from your place of residence to the place of your work trial or studies is at least 10 kilometres. Compensation for commuting expenses is always claimed retroactively for each calendar month, for example January’s commuting is claimed in February.Apply for commuting and housing expenses compensation by filling in a commuting invoice in our online service: Vocationa rehabilitation - Apply for copmpensation for rehabilitation costs - Commuting invoice.
File a notification of starting studies immediately when your studies begin: Vocational rehabilitation - Apply for compensation for rehabilitation costs - Go to the notification of studies. We will pay you compensation for study-related expenses based on your notification of studies. If your journey from your home to the place of study is more than 10 kilometres, write up a commuting invoice monthly after the fact: Vocational rehabilitation - Apply for compensation for rehabilitation costs - Go to the commuting invoice.
If, according to your original rehabilitation plan, you were supposed to graduate in spring, but you have to continue your studies into the summer, you must present us with a written study plan from your school (classes to be completed, time frame, number of credits to be completed, estimated graduation date), as well as a transcript of already completed studies. We will decide separately whether we can support your continuation plan.
When you graduate and your studies end, Varma’s rehabilitation will end, and it will be time for you to begin applying for work. If you graduate early or your studies are interrupted, be sure to notify Varma so that we can review your entitlement to rehabilitation allowance and you can avoid recovery payments.
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We will use the feedback we receive to develop our services. Please note, however, that we do not respond to messages sent using this form. If you have a matter related to your customer account, you can take care of it in the Varma Online Service or by contacting our customer service 010 192 100.
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