ROUTE
Workplace injury
An accredited doctor instead of your own, the employer’s report, benefits beyond sick pay including rehabilitation — and one month to object.
✓ Checked: 01/08/2026
A workplace injury in Germany is not covered by your health fund but by a separate branch — statutory accident insurance. It has its own doctors, its own benefits and its own logic, and you enter it only through the right first step. Going to your family doctor starts the wrong process and means weeks of transferring the case afterwards.
COSTS AND DEADLINES
What you pay for on this route
- For you as the insured persontreatment, rehabilitation and the procedure are borne by the Berufsgenossenschaft0 €
- Accident insurance contributions§ 150 (1) SGB VII — nothing is deducted from your wages for itpaid by the employer alone
Amounts follow official fees as of each step’s verification date. Your city may charge a different rate — check the step itself.
› More about this route
This four-step route works through the system in full: the visit to an accredited doctor instead of your own, the accident report filed by your employer, benefits that reach considerably further than ordinary sick pay, and finally the insurer’s decision with its one-month objection deadline.
What almost nobody knows in advance: this system covers not only treatment and money during incapacity but also rehabilitation, assistive devices, retraining into another occupation and a pension for permanently reduced earning capacity. Nobody volunteers these rights — you ask for them.
WHERE PEOPLE MOST OFTEN LOSE MONEY AND TIME
- Going to your family doctor instead of an accredited one. That starts ordinary treatment at your health fund’s expense, and switching afterwards costs weeks.
- Not reporting a minor injury. Consequences surface later, and reconstructing events and witnesses six months on is barely possible.
- Not reading your employer’s accident report. An inaccurate description affects recognition, and at the start it is far easier to correct.
- Letting the one-month objection deadline lapse. It runs from receipt, not from the date printed on the letter, and its expiry closes the ordinary route of appeal.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS ROUTE
How long do I have to challenge the decision?▾
As a rule one month from receipt, and the period is stated in the decision itself. Disputes usually concern the degree of reduced earning capacity, meaning medical opinions — request those together with your objection.
What should be recorded in the first hours?▾
Names and contact details of witnesses, the exact time and place, and what you were doing at that moment. Where possible a photo of the spot and the referral you were given. Reconstructing such details a month later is far harder, and the link between the event and your work later rests on them.
How long does the whole path take?▾
The first medical visit falls on the day of the event, the employer’s report goes out within the following days, and treatment and benefits run in parallel. The written decision takes longest: that depends on the severity of the case and on whether an expert opinion was needed.