Permanent disability is recognized by Social Security when the injuries, foreseeably permanent, prevent the worker from doing all or the main tasks of his usual profession, even if he can dedicate himself to another, and the diagnosis, no matter how serious it may be, is not enough on its own to achieve it. Even so, when requesting it, many workers carry folders full of reports and forget the paper that explains what their job entailed.
Elisa Cardona, disability and labor issues lawyer at the Zaragoza firm Iuris Legal (@iurislegalcc on Instagram) explains that “if you are going to request a permanent disability, there is a document that almost no one presents and it is key.” That document is the professionogram, which is a report that details what exactly is done in the workplace, what are the functions, schedules, tools you use, physical conditions required, risks and the skills necessary to do it well.
How to apply and what to bring
“Permanent disability is requested before the INSS and you can do it in person or through its website,” explains Cardona. The first thing to present is “the official permanent disability form” and then the personal documentation (“DNI, NIE, passport”). The Social Security website indicates that it can be submitted online in the benefits portal, at the INSS offices by appointment or by regular mail to the provincial address.
Added to this are other papers depending on the case, “such as, for example, proving that we are dealing with a work accident or occupational disease,” and medical reports. To those that establish the diagnosis, the lawyer adds “those that reflect the evolution, the treatment, the medical tests that have been done on you.”
What is the professionogram and who creates it?
The professionogram “is a document that explains what you do in your job and the demands that it entails,” details the lawyer. This is important “because to assess a disability it is not enough to say I have this illness. It must be demonstrated that my illness prevents me from doing these tasks of my profession.” In addition, he points out that “it allows you to compare the demands of your work with the limitations that arise from your illness.”
This is related to the twenty-sixth transitional provision of the General Social Security Law, which is the one that sets the degrees today and, where it is considered that the total degree is what disqualifies the worker “from carrying out all or the fundamental tasks of said profession, as long as he can dedicate himself to a different one”, and partial, which detracts at least 33% of his performance in it.
In this way, if the medical tribunal (the Disability Assessment Team) does not know what these tasks are, it can hardly measure how much the illness prevents them.
Cardona is not the first lawyer to insist on the importance of this role. Labor lawyer Víctor Arpa also said that the professionogram is a document with which many permanent disability pensions are earned. According to him, it is prepared by the company, so you have to ask your boss or human resources before submitting the application.
If the company does not have its own, Social Security includes among its application forms a “Company Certificate for description of the tasks performed”, an official model so that the company can leave this work in writing.
Social Security pays 24 monthly payments of the regulatory base at once to workers with partial permanent disability, who only pay income taxes for 70% of that compensation.
The BOE publishes the aid of up to 144,242 euros that the families of the Urda victims can collect, changes in sick leave and improvements in orphan’s and widow’s pensions
Let’s take the case of a supermarket stocker with a shoulder injury, in which the reports will say what is in the joint and what treatment she has followed, while the job description states in writing that she spends the day placing boxes on the highest shelves.