The Social Insurance Institution of Finland
A part of the assignment was to find out how to access our own health care data on OmaKanta. The access works by bank credentials or mobile certificate through Suomi.fi service. On OmaKanta I can see my recipes and visits on health care services. On OmaKanta I can have covid vaccination certificate. OmaKanta is online service which is being administered by the social insurance institution of Finland (KELA).
KELA allows people to use public healthcare services and gives reimbursements for medicine expenses. When you have a municipality residence in Finland and you are registered with Digital and Population Data Service Agency, you will have a free Kela card and to use public healthcare services. You can get a direct, on-the-spot reimbursement for your costs when you present your Kela card at the pharmacy or at public medical clinics and at many private medical clinics too. You must pay yourself is deductible or the copayment.
I visited also at site of pension provider KEVA. I logged in and checked when I can retire. To have a full pension, my estimated retirement age would be 68. In case I would like to have part time retirement, is would be possible at the age of 63. There was information that final retirement age for me is not yet defined.
I have only used public health care and got reimbursements for medicine expenses and when I was young, I received financial aid for studying from Kela.
Through my work I have got familiar to Kela rehabilitation possibilities. Many of my students are having rehabilitation allowance for young persons. The government is proposing changes to the allowance. But now students are allowed to have it, if they are between 16 to 19 years old, their capacity for study (or work) has decreased because of illness or impairment and they need special support to study. At school special education personnel decides for a student to receive special support and the service county makes rehabilitation plan and includes a student’s special education plan to it.
Sometimes my students have also rehabilitative psychotherapy to improve their ability to study (and work). The psychotherapy compensated by Kela may decrease the risk of become marginalized for mental health issues.
Rehabilitation allowance for young persons | Our Services | Kela
Rehabilitative psychotherapy | Our Services | Kela
Online service on use
I chose to introduce “Adult education allowance” service, because I study now part time and work part time. I use this service monthly, when I apply the allowance. The adult education allowance is part of Finnish employment fund. With the allowance, you can acquire a degree or complete shorter trainings. A new law got into effect 1.6.2024 according to discontinued adult education benefits. But I you are now receiving the allowance; you can apply for more funding for the same studies in one or more parts until the end of 2025.
At the first you must be accepted to a school or a learning institution and have agreed with your employer that you are going to have study leave. After that you make application for adult education allowance. That is the first step in the online service. You will have an answer on your email in few weeks, depending on rush.
After every studying month you make online the application to receive the allowance. Use of this service is very easy. The instructions on site are clear and detailed. You log in with your bank credentials through Suomi.fi service. The service gets from your salary data, if you have received salary or other benefits during the period and asks you if the information is right. If need you add information. When application has been sent, you will have a receipt on email. Applications go through automatic processing, so the answer of accepted conclusion comes quickly. With the answer comes information, when the allowance amount will be on your bank account.
I have been asked to visit some digital shops evaluate the prizes to local shop prices, and information adequacy to the consumer. I visited on Trivago and Booking.com and compared prizes. By Trivago there was guiding to hotels.com, Booking.com and to websites of hotels. On Trivago the prizes varied but included free cancellation. Travelling alone was not the first option on Booking.com or Trivago. Do people usually travel together? I found Trivago most versatile service. Information on all sites was adequate. I have used before Hotels.com and Booking.com services and they have all ways been reliable. I suppose, I can trust Trivago too, because it has been many years on the market and hundreds of thousands of people use it every day around the world.
Adult education allowance – Adult education allowance (aikuiskoulutustuki.fi)
These blogs I commented
Mariel Mariel – Mariel’s site (wordpress.com)
Hanna Hanna’s blog – My digitalized environment (savonia.fi)
Digital gap
Using digital services makes running errands much quicker and safer if information security is all right. If you don’t want or can not use digital services taking care of things is much slower and may be more complicated.
For example, if you make application for adult education allowance, you must print application form out, fill it and mail it. It can take much longer time to have a conclusion than if you would use digital service. There is always a risk that the mail gets lost and your personal data ends up to wrong hands. I don’t even know how they check form you are your salary information right. If that goes by mail, the process reaches hugely. When I check that my salary has been announced right, I just go to my bank with mobile app and see my salary info. That takes a minute. But if I wouldn’t use the app, I should call to my payroll computation for the information and the official should ensure that it really is me, who is asking for the salary info. Doable but complicated.
If a person doesn’t have bank credentials all kind of running official errands is complicated. It is crucial to solve this issue. Everyone in Finland should have the access to public services without depending on if you are able to use digital platforms or not.
My Self-reflection
On this assignment all the official services were familiar to me, but I had not regarded them widely. Now I read them up better.
Digital travelling services I have used many times during years, but it was nice to read that the writers of other blogs have same kind of user experiences than me.
The most interesting part of this assignment was the digital competence test. I have thought that my skills on using digital services, platforms and equipment are okay, but not have analyzed this deeper. Now I can happily recognize on the part of safety my skills are good. How to protect my data I would take more attention form now on. The part of information I have been aware that storing data is not my strength, but now I can take more attention to that know-how too. To communication part I feel contend and think there are no need for a big change. On the production part I have the lowest points. That I agree, because I am not a huge fan of technology overall. I prefer to use digital services and equipment to ease my life, but I am not the person who would be keen to experiment new solutions just for interest.