Are you a doctor who writes statements for applications for disability allowance for children? See Kela’s administrative guideline

1. Administrative guidelines are used at Kela to facilitate the process of reviewing benefit applications. Even though the guidelines are primarily intended for Kela’s internal use, they also provide up-to-date information to healthcare professionals.
2. The administrative guideline on disability allowance for persons under 16 years provides information about the basis on which Kela makes decisions on applications. Familiarising yourself with the guideline will help you highlight issues that are relevant to the disability allowance for children, and it can reduce the number of unnecessary statements.
3. The administrative guideline includes

   • general guidelines on who can receive disability allowance and what rate of the allowance they are entitled to
   • information about how Kela assesses how much strain the child’s care and rehabilitation cause and what level of commitment they require, i.e. how demanding it is to care for the child and how much time it takes, considering the individual situation
   • examples of different illnesses. Kela uses these examples to help decide on applications. Please note that the general guideline on disability allowance always takes precedence over illness-specific guidelines.
4. We update the administrative guideline when necessary, so we recommend that you check it regularly. For example, the illness-specific examples in the guideline were last updated in June 2024. Some rare illnesses may be removed from the guideline, but the child may still be entitled to disability allowance even if their illness is not included in the examples.