A UWV review looks back across two years while the employer is still covering tomorrow’s work.
A technician has been ill for months. The owner has moved jobs between colleagues, hired temporary help and kept the technician’s position available. Customers still expect their appointments. Payroll still runs. Somewhere between those pressures, the reintegration process must keep moving.
If the absence reaches the WIA stage, UWV reviews what happened during those months. It examines the reintegration report and the efforts behind it. If the employer’s work was inadequate, or required documents arrived late or incomplete, UWV can extend wage payment beyond the normal 104 weeks for up to another 52 weeks.
That possibility changes the meaning of a long sickness case. It is not solely an HR matter. It reaches staffing, cash, customer delivery and the employer’s ability to bring the employment relationship to an end. During compulsory extended wage payment, the employer may not dismiss the worker.
What UWV will see
The owner experiences the case through daily interruptions. UWV later sees a chronology. Its standard reintegration report can include the occupational physician’s problem analysis, the plan of action and updates, the first-year evaluation, a current occupational-health opinion and the final evaluation.
Employer and worker must discuss progress at least every six weeks and adjust the plan where necessary. This creates a simple but demanding test: can someone reading the record understand what was known, what work was considered, what the parties agreed and what happened next?
Good intentions cannot answer that question alone. An employer may genuinely support a worker while still leaving long gaps between decisions. A task adjustment might be agreed by telephone but never added to the plan. An internal return may remain the hope long after its practical prospects have weakened. External reintegration can then begin under time pressure.
I read a loonsanctie as a late financial consequence of earlier gaps in timing and follow-up. The formal decision arrives near the end. The vulnerable moments usually occurred much earlier, amid ordinary work.
The worker also has duties
Reintegration is shared. UWV says workers must cooperate, attend relevant appointments and accept suitable work. Employers must consider adjusted tasks, different hours, workplace changes and suitable work inside or outside the business.
When a worker does not cooperate, the employer still needs to manage the situation visibly and proportionately. A note saying “employee refused” rarely tells the whole business story. What work was offered? Why was it considered suitable? What response followed? Was the occupational physician involved? Did the plan change?
Wage measures may be possible in some circumstances, but they are not an automatic response to every disagreement. The facts and the process matter. Medical information also requires firm boundaries. The employer’s record should cover work, contact, options and decisions, while medical details remain within the proper occupational-health framework.
Where the parties are stuck, UWV’s deskundigenoordeel can provide an external view on fitness for work, suitable work or whether enough has been done. It is an expert opinion, not a court ruling, and it is not binding. UWV can nevertheless use it when assessing the eventual reintegration report. A disagreement left informal for months can become difficult to explain later.
The numbers need a human reading
UWV assessed 44,139 reintegration reports in 2025. It recorded 1,825 substantive loonsancties and 1,887 administrative ones. These are system totals, but they show that both the quality of the effort and the completeness of the record carry real consequences.
The latest CBS figures available in September put sickness absence at 5.4 percent in the second quarter of 2026. Among businesses with 1 to 10 workers, it was 2.5 percent. A percentage can look manageable from a distance. Inside a small company, one prolonged absence can still remove a large share of available skill or weekly capacity.
Return to our technician. Continued wages are only one part of the pressure. Temporary cover costs money. Colleagues may work overtime. The owner spends hours in meetings and correspondence. Jobs may be postponed because the replacement lacks a qualification or customer history. One employment case can therefore appear simultaneously in payroll, margins and service quality.
Proposals are not present protection
Dutch policy is trying to reduce some uncertainty. Bill 37002, submitted to the Tweede Kamer on 31 August 2026, proposes making the occupational physician’s functional-capacity advice leading in UWV’s assessment of the reintegration report. If enacted, that could reduce the risk of an employer following medical guidance and later facing a different medical view from UWV.
A separate proposal would give small and medium-sized employers an earlier route to focus solely on external reintegration from the second sickness year, with the worker’s consent or UWV permission. It recognises a real small-business tension: keeping the original role available while paying someone else to perform the work.
Both changes remain proposals. Current sickness cases still run under the existing duties. The useful response is not to wait for reform, but to make long-term absence visible in normal company management. The roster, cash forecast and reintegration record should be reviewed together because each shows a different part of the same exposure.
For the owner covering tomorrow’s appointments, this need not become a culture of defensive paperwork. The better standard is calmer: record decisions while they are fresh, connect them to the advice available and address uncertainty before it hardens into delay. Care for the worker and discipline in the process are not opposing values. In a small employer, each protects the other.
If a long-term sickness case is affecting capacity, cash flow or reintegration decisions, contact me to review the exposure in context.
The data, sourcing, and analysis behind this article were conducted by Linda Pavan Geraedts. AI was not used to identify sources, build the factual basis, or produce the analytical judgment contained here. AI was used only as a drafting aid. The final English text was personally reviewed, edited, and approved by Linda Pavan Geraedts before publication.
References
- Loonsanctie van UWV voorkomen? Deze 5 tips helpen werkgevers · Salaris Vanmorgen
- UWV - Current UWV loonsanctie exposure
- UWV - The evidence file behind reintegration
- UWV - Shared duties and worker non-cooperation
- UWV - Breaking a deadlock before the WIA stage
- UWV - Quantitative information 2025
- Overheid.nl Wetgevingskalender - Proposed change: occupational physician advice in the RIV assessment
- Rijksoverheid - Second-track reintegration and small-employer capacity
