News item | 19-12-2025 | 3:00 PM
To combat the backlogs in assessing disability, more of the work of insurance doctors must also be able to be done by other healthcare professionals. The aim is for more assessments to be carried out per year. UWV will also work on improving their services and ensuring that they work in the same way nationally. In addition, more structural measures will be needed in the coming years to catch up on the backlog. Minister Paul of Social Affairs and Employment stated this in a progress letter to the House of Representatives.
Minister Paul: “If you become incapacitated for work, you want to know where you stand. The waiting time is now far too long. As a government, we want to use insurance doctors and HBO professionals more specifically in assessments of disability, so that we can provide clarity to more people per year. We are now working on this. In addition, the disability system must also be simpler. We are now mapping out the fundamental choices this requires, so that a new cabinet can quickly make decisions about this.”
Disadvantage
More and more disability assessments are being requested, but there are not enough insurance doctors to help everyone. In 2026, UWV is expected to receive 40,000 more applications for a socio-medical assessment than UWV can assess. The backlog is therefore increasing every year.
Reparative surgery
UWV wants to start correcting underpaid WIA benefits in 2026 due to errors in the calculation. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment has drawn up a scheme that ensures that this one-off financial compensation does not have any negative effects on their income-related schemes, such as healthcare or housing allowance. UWV is expected to start paying out the reimbursements in the course of 2026.
Penalty payments
UWV must make a decision on an application for disability benefits within sixteen weeks. If that doesn’t work, people can file a notice of default with UWV. This may lead to an administrative penalty. Due to the growing backlog in assessing applications, it is unrealistic that UWV will meet this deadline in the coming years. The penalty therefore no longer serves the purpose for which it was intended. For this reason, preparations are being made to temporarily abolish the administrative penalty in the WIA. People can still go to court if they deem it necessary, so that legal protection remains assured.
Distribute assessment tasks
In order to be able to carry out more assessments, a larger part of the tasks will be carried out by other professionals, as the House also requested in the Ceder cs motion. To achieve this, UWV will in the short term ensure that HBO professionals are allowed to carry out more tasks independently. And a different division of tasks is being worked on. Other professionals will perform more tasks under the responsibility of the insurance doctor.
At the same time, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, together with professional associations and UWV, is starting an exploration into the future division of roles for the long term. For this purpose, existing legislation and regulations will have to be amended in the future, so that some tasks – which are now legally assigned to insurance doctors – can also be performed by other healthcare professionals.