Kela’s Terminological Glossary – Benefit-related Concepts, version 6.1

The glossary is available:
- in the TEPA Term Bank
- in the Terminologies tool on the Interoperability Platform

Languages of the glossary:
- Terms: Finnish, Swedish
- Concept descriptions: Finnish, Swedish (partly)

Kela’s Terminological Glossary – Benefit-related Concepts, 6th edition (TSK 55) published in 2021 has been supplemented and updated. The subjects covered in the publication are the benefits provided by Kela (the Social Insurance Institution of Finland), e.g. sickness allowances and reimbursements for medical expenses under the Health Insurance Act, medical treatment in international situations, occupational health care, disability benefits and interpreter service for the disabled, rehabilitation organized and reimbursed by Kela, pensions paid by Kela, housing benefits, financial aid for students, conscript's allowance, benefits for families with children, unemployment allowances and basic social assistance.

The version 6.1 published in June 2023 includes e.g. updated concepts on parental allowances based on an act reforming family leaves and parental benefits that came into effect on 1 August 2022. Other subject fields, such as medicine, medical treatment in international situations and interpreter service for the disabled, have also been updated, and obsolete concepts have been removed. In addition, references to municipalities have been checked and, when necessary, changed to refer to wellbeing services counties since the responsibility for organising healthcare and social welfare was transferred from municipalities and joint municipal authorities to counties in the beginning of 2023.

Kela’s Terminological Glossary contains information on 571 concepts in term records and concept diagrams. The concepts have been defined and given term recommendations in Finnish and Swedish. The relations between the concepts are illustrated with the help of concept diagrams. The new concepts in version 6.1 of the glossary do not have Swedish translations, and if Finnish concept descriptions have been updated, the Swedish descriptions do not correspond to the updated Finnish ones. The Swedish terms and concept descriptions will be updated and published later.

Kela’s Terminological Glossary describes the Finnish social security system from the point of view of legislation. The glossary is aimed at experts on social security, law drafters, PR officers, editors, translators and all who need to know the recommended social security terms used in connection with Kela and their meaning. The glossary also supports data management and helps to develop retrieval, transmission, archiving and modelling of data.

Kela and the Finnish Terminology Centre started to define concepts already in 2007. The aim was to harmonize, establish and clarify the terminology related to social security provided by Kela and to improve communication between Kela and its partners with the help of systematic terminology work. The previous editions of Kela’s Terminological Glossary (previously called the terminological vocabularies of Kela) were published in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2017, 2018 and 2021. Those editions were also published as PDF files. Version 6.1 is published only in the TEPA Term Bank and the Terminologies tool.