In addition to the right to health care, one of the rights from the compulsory health insurance is also the right to salary compensation based on temporary incapacity/disability to work.
If you are, for example, an employee employed by an employer based in another EU/EEA Member State/Switzerland sent to temporary work in Croatia, then temporary incapacity for work (sick leave) can be identified by the contracting primary health care practitioner in Croatia without your return to your home country for this purpose.
The same practitioner may also initiate your sick leave in case you work in another Member State and get sick during your private stay in Croatia.
If you are a Croatian insuree and you become ill during your stay in another Member State, a foreign doctor can open a sick leave for you. The same doctor should fill in form E116 (Medical certificate of temporary incapacity for work), which must then be handed over to foreign insurance at the place of residence in another Member State. The same foreign insurance will then submit the said form to the HZZO together with the form E115 (Request for financial benefits in case of incapacity for work). A foreign doctor may also issue you another certificate of temporary incapacity for work prescribed in the said country. You are obliged to inform your employer in Croatia and the Croatian Health Insurance Institute (HZZO) about open sick leave within the deadlines prescribed by Croatian regulations, and you are entitled to salary compensation in accordance with Croatian regulations.
MORE – Salary compensation during temporary incapacity for work | HZZO