[Company health promotion as a possible preparatory stage of effective rehabilitation]

In Section 20a of Book 5 of the German Social Code (SGB V), the legislator obliged the health insurance funds to carry out company health promotion in cooperation with the accident insurance agency in charge. He thus created a foundation for more health and secure earnings or employment potential in the companies. At the same time company health promotion permits detecting threats to this potential. That helps to identify a possible need for rehabilitation at an earlier stage and to take appropriate action.To verify whether and how this instrument of preventive health policy is being used, an empirical study explored the actual application of that legal provision in small and medium-sized enterprises in particular. The law, administrative measures and company everyday evidence were set against each other under legal and de facto aspects, which showed obvious deficits in applying the law. Proposals for better company health promotion are derived from these findings. In the first place, actors in administration and self-management of the statutory health and accident insurance schemes are addressed to this end, in anticipation of enhanced implementation. A premature reduction of earning capacity could thus be counteracted. Pension insurants could retain gainful employment for a longer time, companies would have a more reliable employee basis. Social insurance carriers, notably the health and pension insurance schemes, would have to spend less in the end. A development like that would be a benefit for all--including the state.