Long-term sick leave works very differently from the short statutory sick pay most newcomers know from elsewhere, and it carries duties on both sides rather than just a payment. The two-year structure, and the re-integration steps inside it, catch people out at precisely the moment they are least able to research anything.
It runs in two stages over 104 weeks total. Your employer has to keep paying at least 70% of your wage throughout — year one comes with a minimum-wage floor guarantee, year two doesn't, though a lot of CAOs top year one up to 100% anyway, so check yours. Alongside the pay, the Poortwachter rules (Gatekeeper Act) put active re-integration duties on both of you: a reintegration plan within the first weeks, regular contact, and often a "second track" process to look for work elsewhere if you can't return to your old role. Skip these obligations and the UWV can extend the employer's pay obligation by up to a year as a sanction. Around week 91–93 you apply for WIA, the long-term disability benefit, and UWV assesses whether re-integration efforts on both sides were sufficient before deciding. If you feel your employer isn't holding up their end, a union or a labor-law juridisch loket session can flag it before the WIA assessment, not after.