Author of the article: Yulia Kaysina Last modified: January 2022 33486
Sometimes unscrupulous employees, trying to justify their absence without a good reason, present the employer with a fake certificate of incapacity for work. The organization pays for it, and after some time the FSS reports that the document is invalid and refuses to pay for it. To avoid this problem, the employer can check sick leave. An employee may also need this option, for example, to control accrued payments.
Visual check of paper sick leave
If the certificate of incapacity for work is issued in the traditional way on a paper form, its authenticity can be checked visually. Sick leave certificates contain many degrees of protection, so it is quite difficult to forge them.
An authentic document has the following characteristics:
- the color of the original form is uneven: at the edges it is slightly darker than in the center, with a faint purple tint;
- The cells to be filled out in the official form are yellowish in color. If they are white, the document is a fake;
- there is a background grid across the entire surface of the original form, except for the “Doctor’s signature” field;
- three types of multi-colored protective fibers: blue (best visible) and barely noticeable pink and light green. If it is possible to examine a document under ultraviolet light, all fibers become clearly visible and change color from blue and yellow to green and red;
- barcode in the upper right corner and microtext (under the inscription: “Doctor’s signature”, “Certificate of incapacity for work” is printed in small print). Similar text can be seen under the inscriptions: “Signature of the manager” and “Signature of the chief accountant.” The microtext can only be read with a magnifying glass. There is no microtext on fake forms, and the inscriptions are underlined with a regular line;
- the original form is protected with watermarks - the FSS logo and the text “Social Insurance Fund of the Russian Federation”;
- if the sick leave is genuine, then the number can be clearly felt with your fingers;
- paper quality: original forms are printed on paper similar to that used to print banknotes. If it is possible to compare it by touch with a reliably genuine hospital note, you can do this.
Expert commentary
Gorchakov Vladimir
Lawyer
Gross violations in the section that is filled out by the medical institution (incorrect name or address of the organization, unspecified period of inpatient treatment, etc.) are not clear evidence of forgery - perhaps a mistake was made by an employee of the medical institution. However, it is better to double-check such sick leave and, if necessary, replace it, since even a genuine certificate of incapacity for work with errors in the section filled out by the medical institution is considered invalid.
With a high degree of probability, a fake will be a sick leave certificate, which contains the name of a doctor who does not work in this hospital at the time of registration of the document. You should also be wary if the seal does not match the name of the organization.
The sick leave has successfully passed the test - what next?
If the sick leave is real and the employee has received his legal payment, then the employer then interacts with the Federal Social Insurance Fund of the Russian Federation. In a situation where there are few sick employees, the amounts of benefits are simply deducted from the current accruals for mandatory insurance contributions.
But it happens that the benefits paid exceed the amount of insurance payments. Then the employer has the right to compensation from the funds of the Federal Social Insurance Fund of the Russian Federation.
Officials are making the reimbursement process difficult in every possible way, using “technical” quibbles, delaying deadlines, etc. Often, after a long and complex procedure, a refund is still refused. At the same time, accountants often do not want to waste energy and nerves challenging the decisions of officials. Then the funds are in the fund for an indefinite period, and management may not even be aware of it.
1C-Wiseadvice clients are free from these problems.
We do all the dirty work related to reimbursement of funds from the Social Insurance Fund ourselves. Our specialists thoroughly know both the legal requirements and the internal regulations of the fund’s divisions in different regions. We have extensive experience in overcoming bureaucratic obstacles, so all funds that should be returned to you by law will be returned.
More and more businessmen trust us with this work, and we do not let them down: since 2016, the total volume of refunds from the Social Insurance Fund for our clients has amounted to more than 150 million rubles.
Request to the medical institution and the Social Insurance Fund
A visual check helps to identify a fake if the sick leave is issued on a non-original form. However, there are situations when fraudsters receive genuine forms and fill them out with false information. In this case, it will be a little more difficult to establish a fake sick leave.
First of all, it is worth checking whether such a medical institution exists and trying to obtain information there. To do this, it is better to send an official request, if possible on the organization’s letterhead, and attach a copy of the sick leave to it. The letter asks to indicate whether the institution actually issued a sick leave certificate with such a number. It is also advisable to indicate how the author wants to receive a response (by email or regular mail, by phone, by fax).
However, some hospitals may refuse to provide information, citing medical confidentiality. In this case, you can contact the FSS with a request to check the questionable document. A document is also attached to the application (it is better to ask the FSS in advance whether they will need a copy or an original). The request can clarify what exactly confuses the employer. The Social Insurance Fund records which sick leaves were issued to a specific medical institution. Therefore, its employees will be able to quickly check whether the number of a specific document and the name of the organization where it was issued match their database. Also, Foundation employees have more opportunities and powers to check questionable forms.
Important! The employer must remember that the check should be done fairly quickly. By law, accruals must be made no later than 10 days after the certificate of incapacity is provided.
Request to verify the authenticity of a certificate of incapacity for work (sample)
Checking through a medical facility
The next possible stage of verification is to contact the clinic or hospital directly. When issuing sick leave at an outpatient clinic or hospital, a tear-off stub remains, which confirms the patient’s period of incapacity for work.
To do this, you need to fill out an official request on the company’s letterhead with approximately the following content:
The request is sent by registered mail with acknowledgment of receipt. To more quickly receive the required answer, you can personally call Ivanov I.I. and explain why the ten-day sick leave payment period is important to you.
However, data on sick leave issued can only be obtained with the consent of the patient himself, since this information is a medical secret. And the head of the medical institution may also officially refuse an answer, referring to his regulatory documents.
Checking sick leave by number
Every month the FSS publishes on its website a database of numbers of invalid certificates of incapacity for work. If among them is the document number provided by the employee, this means that the sick leave is fake. But the opposite situation does not mean anything - since the database is updated once a month, it may not contain all the numbers of invalid forms.
To check your sick leave number, you need to:
- go to the FSS website in the “Information for Employers” section;
- go to the subsection “Invalid forms of certificates of incapacity for work.”
Registration or authorization on the portal is not required for this. Here you can download a database of invalid forms (lost or stolen). There is no need to manually check the document number - just enter it in the search field.
Checking electronic sick leave
It is almost impossible to falsify an electronic sick leave certificate, since only an employee of a medical institution can open it, and until the document is closed, third parties do not have access. Therefore, the question of its authenticity usually does not arise. A situation may arise when an unscrupulous doctor issues a document to a person who was not actually sick. But it is unlikely that it will be possible to establish this fact without an investigation by law enforcement officials or the clinic itself.
Expert commentary
Shadrin Alexey
Lawyer
If the employer has doubts that the employee was really sick, he can initiate a check by submitting a request to a medical institution or the Social Insurance Fund.
Therefore, the employer’s verification of the electronic sick leave essentially coincides with the procedure for filling it out. If the document number provided by the employee is in the FSS database, then the document is genuine. To do this, the employer registered in the system just needs to log into his personal account and find sick leave there using the document number and SNILS of the employee. Then the responsible employee can only fill out his part of the sick leave, after which the document is automatically sent to social insurance.
Who fills out the sick leave form?
Sick leave (SL) is the main primary document related to disability payments.
Based on it, the employer will not only calculate the amount due to the employee, but also receive reimbursement of expenses from the Social Insurance Fund.
The peculiarity of the BL is that the accountant cannot fully control the process of its registration. The fact is that the first part of the document is filled out by the doctor, and only then the BL gets to the organization where the sick employee works.
Important!
The employer must determine the amount of payment for the employee’s period of incapacity based on the data of the medical institution.
But there is no need to rush into making calculations. Before accrual, the responsible employer checks the sick leave certificate for authenticity. We'll look at how to do this in the next section.
Checking sick leave by employee
Employees who have a confirmed account on the State Services portal can also access their electronic sick leave in the Social Insurance Fund database and check the accruals made. To do this they need:
- Go to the FSS website in the “Accounts” section.
- Select “Insured Person’s Account” and click the “Account Login” button.
- Next, you will need to agree to the use of personal data.
- Your personal account will contain information about all issued electronic sick leave and the amounts accrued for them, including calculations.
Documents can be downloaded and printed (for example, if you need to contact the accounting department regarding incorrect accruals or go to court to protect your rights). But you can only view data on electronic sick leave; information on paper forms is not displayed there.
Authentication in the FSS
You can check the authenticity of the sick leave certificate on the FSS website.
The forms and methods of work of the territorial branches of the Social Insurance Fund are constantly being improved. Thus, in 2016, a new Pilot Project was launched in certain regions of our country.
Since July 2022, it began to operate in new cities and regions (the possibility and rules of participation can be found in your Territorial Office). As of January 1, 2021 39 regions joined it. It is planned to transfer 20 more regions to the pilot project in 2022 and 18 in 2022.
The essence of this project is that sick leave is paid to the employee directly, bypassing the employer. You, as an employer, only need to submit a set of documents to the Social Insurance Fund (their list can be read on the website). The transition to a direct method of payment for sick leave should be completed by the end of 2022.
But while this long-awaited year has not yet arrived, you can contact your territorial authority with a written request to check the disputed sick leave. (If you did not receive a full answer from the medical institution, or did not receive it at all). The document is drawn up in the same way (see point 3). Businesses reporting electronically have some advantage.
It is possible to make a scan of the presented sick leave and send it to your territorial department through a telecom operator (for example: “Astral”, “VLSI”, etc.). Doctors involved, among other things, in checking sick leave certificates, will give you an opinion on the authenticity of this document. This is probably the easiest way to control sick leave.
However, a number of organizations (entrepreneurs) have gone even further. They simply order funding from the Social Insurance Fund until the sick leave is paid. (Now I am not saying whether this is correct or not. But if the entire process fits within the ten days allotted for payment, then there are absolutely no violations in this approach). Thus, payment is made with a 100% guarantee from the Social Insurance Fund, while you, as a manager, do not spend your own funds (or partially compensate for them immediately).
