How is my occupational disease processed? (private sector)

A file is created as soon as Fedris receives your claim for compensation. One or more case handlers start with an administrative control. This means that they notably check whether data is missing or not. If so, Fedris will contact you. 

One of Fedris’s doctors examines the forms and medical evidence, if any. He sometimes asks for additional medical evidence. He can also send you a letter to summon you for an on-site medical examination.  

Fedris’s engineers examine whether you have been exposed to an occupational risk that caused your illness. In this context, Fedris’s laboratory can help by carrying out certain biomedical analyses.

The above-mentioned examinations are often initiated simultaneously, but are sometimes performed in a different order if Fedris believes correct decisions can be made quicker by doing so.

Fedris bases its decision on administrative data, the medical examination and the examination of exposure. Fedris informs you of its motivated decision by registered mail. 

If Fedris recognizes your occupational disease and compensates you for it, this letter may mention the following:

• if you are declared temporarily or permanently incapacitated;
• the degree of incapacity for work that you might have been allocated;
• the health care reimbursement period which you are allocated;
• whether the period or degree of incapacity for work can still be reviewed;
• the amount Fedris will pay you as compensation for your occupational disease;
• a recommendation to stop working temporarily or permanently.

If you challenge Fedris's decision, you can lodge an appeal before a Labour Court within one year.

Are you claiming compensation for a disease that is not on the Belgian list of occupational diseases? Fedris will then need more time to make its decision. Fedris must still check whether there is a causal link between your disease and the occupational risk and one of Fedris’s doctors must draw up a motivated report which he will send to a commission that will eventually recognise your occupational disease.