To get a severely disabled person’s ID card, you need to apply to your regional social service authority (Versorgungsamt). You’ll find the address if you search online for “Versorgungsamt”.

Alternatively, you can ask at the citizens’ information office (Bürgeramt) of your local authority or consult the local authority’s website. There is also an online list here giving the addresses of the social service authorities all over Germany.

The ID cards are usually issued for a limited period of time. In most cases they are valid for between two and five years.

Whether you are classed as severely disabled depends on the severity of the illness. The critical factor is not the diagnosis but the functional deficit that the illness has caused and how this deficit affects your ability to live a normal life. For you to be assessed as severely disabled, COVID-19 must have caused lasting damage or a lasting loss of function.

You are entitled to a severely disabled person's ID card if you have been found to have a degree of disability (GdB) of 50 or more. If, as well as your degree of disability, you also have other health issues entitling you to additional compensatory help, these will be indicated by specific letters on your severely disabled person’s ID card.

Further information about assessing disability is available from the social advocacy organizations VdK and SoVD.

The Labor Ministry’s website einfach-teilhaben.de provides extensive information about living with a disability and also includes the forms with which to apply for a severely disabled person’s ID card.

In certain cases, the statutory health funds (Krankenkassen) or the national pension authority (Deutsche Rentenversicherung) will pay the cost of household help.

For example, you may be entitled to help if you are temporarily unable to manage your own home because of serious illness or a stay in hospital and your household includes a child under 12 years of age who needs to be cared for.

Further information is available from the Federal Ministry of Health, the consumer advice centers and the statutory health funds.

If you have private health insurance you should contact your health insurer to find out what you are entitled to.

Which benefits you are able to receive will depend on your individual situation. The following advice centers can help:

• The statutory health and pension insurance funds (Deutsche Rentenversicherung) are an initial source of information and advice. They are obliged to give advice and information about benefits.
• You can also ask the independent patient advisory body UPD or the social advocacy organizations VdK and SoVD.
• The citizen phone line offered by the Federal Ministry for Labor and Social Affairs can also advise about benefits.

If you have questions about care, you can ask the people at one of the care support/advice centers (Pflegestützpunkt). These centers provide information and practical support for people who require care and their families.

Whether you can take early retirement or not depends on the severity of your illness. Severely disabled people (that means people whose degree of disability (GdB) has been assessed as 50 or over) can retire before reaching normal retirement age.

You are entitled to receive your old-age pension earlier if you are recognized as a severely disabled person at the time when you apply and can prove that you have completed 35 qualifying years for pension insurance.

Old-age pension for severely disabled people will also continue to be paid if, later on, you cease to be severely disabled.

Information about early retirement for severely disabled people is available from the pension authority Deutsche Rentenversicherung.

If you can no longer work full time for health reasons, you may qualify for a pension on the grounds of reduced earning capacity.

Full reduced earning capacity pension (Volle Erwerbsminderungsrente): Anyone who is unable to do their job for more than 3 hours per day is entitled to full reduced earnings capacity pension.

Partial reduced earning capacity pension (Teilerwerbsminderungsrente): Anyone who is able to work for more than 3, but not more than 6 hours per day is entitled to partial reduced earnings capacity pension.

For both of these pension types, the applicant must have been in employment and paying statutory pension contributions for at least 5 years altogether. Also, at least 3 of these 5 years must have been during the 5 years leading up to the onset of reduced earnings capacity.

Recipients are allowed to supplement the reduced earnings capacity pension by working and earning some money. This is important because it means you do not leave work completely and you can supplement your pension without overtaxing yourself healthwise.

Further information is sent out every year by the pension authority Deutsche Rentenversicherung and is also made available on its website.

If you would like personal advice, you can go to one of the authority’s local pension advice centers or contact one of its pension advisers. Their advice is free of charge. This list shows you where your nearest centers are.

It is generally the case that illness of an employee is not a reason to terminate their employment. Termination of employment as a result of illness is only allowed in particular circumstances, such as when the employee is off work for a long period of time or for frequent short periods, when repeated absences mean that operations at the company are significantly upset and the employer cannot reasonably be expected to tolerate this, or when the type and severity of the illness mean that the employee is not expected to return to work.

Your situation will also depend on your own employment contract and your state of health. The rules for those working in public service (Beamte), including those still on trial, differ from the rules for other employees. Also, the rules for people with severe disabilities (whose degree of disability - GdB - exceeds 50) differ from the rules for people with no recognized disability.

If you have questions about your personal situation you should ask the employee council /works council (Betriebsrat/Personalrat) or the severe disability representative (Schwerbehindertenvertretung) at your workplace.

Further information about employment protection is provided in a brochure produced by the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs which you can download here.

You can get advice on employment law by calling the citizen phone line of the Federal Ministry for Labor and Social Affairs.

Employees are legally entitled to reduce their working hours whether they have health issues or not. (The part-time and temporary work act, whose title is abbreviated TzBfG, specifies this.)

However, this entitlement is restricted to employees who have been in post for longer than 6 months and whose employer has more than 15 employees. And even when these requirements are met, the employer is not obliged to comply with the employee’s wish to work shorter hours. They can refuse for operational reasons.

If you are refused a reduction in your working hours, you should approach the employees’ council (Betriebsrat or Personalrat) at your company and ask them to support you.

Comprehensive information about part-time working is available in a booklet produced by the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.

For free advice on labor law you can call the Ministry’s citizen phone line.

If you want to reduce the hours you work because you can’t manage a full time job, you should ask your employer.

If you have been sick and off work for more than 6 weeks in a six-month period, your employer has a duty to offer BEM (workplace integration management) to support you. You can arrange to have your working hours reduced as part of BEM.

After being absent because of illness, it is also possible to ease back gradually into working life by arranging to spend a limited period working part-time. One particular option (known as the “Hamburg model”) offers a stepwise return to work. The aim of returning stepwise is to allow the employee to become accustomed to taking on a full workload once again with the aid of medical supervision.

Further information about BEM and the Hamburg model is available at einfach-teilhaben.de, a website of the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.

A coronavirus infection can occur as a result of your work. People whose jobs include a lot of social contact are at increased risk. That means people like teachers, healthcare workers and employees in caring settings such as addiction aid and youth work.

If you caught COVID-19 and you work in an area like this, you should apply to have it recognized as an occupational illness (Berufskrankheit). Once that has happened, the accident insurer responsible (usually the relevant occupational insurance association (Berufsgenossenschaft)) will determine whether your case meets the medical and legal requirements for an occupational illness.

If it does, you are entitled to extensive benefits from statutory accident insurance. These include treatment, rehabilitation, financial benefits such as payments for injured parties and insured people’s pensions, home help, adaptations in the workplace, further training and retraining in a different area of work.

If you have questions about what you are entitled to, you can approach the relevant occupational insurance association.

Further information about occupational illness (Berufskrankheit) is available from the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and the occupational insurance associations (Berufsgenossenschaften).