If the accounting department has lost the employee’s sick leave

Author of the article: Roman Gavrilov Last modified: January 2021 21016

A duplicate sick leave certificate may be required if the document is lost by the employee or filled out incorrectly. You will need to apply for a duplicate document if irreparable blots were made when filling it out. The forms on which the certificate of incapacity for work is issued are strictly taken into account. The list of recognized invalid sick leave certificates is periodically updated on the FSS website.

Registration of sick leave

The ballot form that is in effect now was introduced seven years ago and has not been changed since then. It is filled out by representatives of the healthcare institution where the employee was treated, and then by the personnel department or accounting department of the organization. Sheets are issued not only by state clinics, but also by private clinics that have a license to provide medical services for the examination of temporary incapacity. Before visiting a commercial hospital, you need to clarify whether doctors there can issue sick leave.

Important! The patient himself is prohibited from writing anything into the bulletin. Otherwise, the form is considered damaged.

The specifics of filling out the document are explained in the relevant FSS letters of 2011 - No. 14-03-11/15-8605 dated September 14, No. 14-03-18/15-12956 dated October 28, No. 14-03-11/15-16055 dated December 23. In particular, it describes that the document is filled out only with black ink in capital letters, which should not come out or touch the boundaries of the cell. Filling out occurs in handwriting or by typing on a personal computer in an installed special program. When printing, you need to put dashes in each empty field. The seal is placed so that it does not cover the entered information, and the scanner would read it without problems.

The sick note has three sections to fill out:

• In the first, information is entered by the doctor or the receptionist of the medical institution. Here they indicate the patient’s data, organization, type of work activity (main/part-time), dates of appointment with the doctor. When the time to close the sheet has not yet come, and there is no longer room to enter appointment dates, the health worker writes out another bulletin, which is indicated in the main document. The first part also indicates the disease codes (their meaning is on the back of the form) and the first day of return to work.
• In the second section, data is entered by representatives of the employer after the ballot is closed. This is information about the organization, type of work activity, INN and SNILS of the employee, length of service, date of return to work, average daily salary, amount of accrued benefits, which consists of two parts - the employer’s funds and the social insurance budget. The document is signed by the manager and chief accountant, and if available, the organization’s seal is affixed.
• The third section is a detachable part that is filled out by a representative of a medical organization. It is needed for internal reporting.

Instructions for filling out a certificate of incapacity for work

Are changes allowed when filling out a certificate of incapacity for work?

They are only allowed to be entered by the employer if errors are detected, for example, when indicating incorrect company details, errors in the calculated length of service of the employee, or incorrect calculations of compensation. Inaccurate information is crossed out, the correct information is indicated on the reverse side, then a note is made “believe the corrected”, a seal and signature of the responsible persons are affixed. When incorrect data is found in the sections filled out by the medical institution, the ballot is always returned to the clinic to be canceled and a duplicate is issued. Otherwise, the fund sometimes refuses to reimburse the costs of paying benefits, then the issue is resolved in court.

Certificate of issue of a duplicate certificate of incapacity for work

Some patients believe that a duplicate sick note is accompanied by a certificate. The law does not provide for the issuance of certificates when preparing a duplicate. The only exception

- a long-term illness during which several certificates of incapacity for work were issued.
This is due to the fact that each form has its own unique number
. When the document is restored, the sick leave number will also change, which should be indicated in the continuation.

It is also important for many workers to know how quickly a duplicate sick leave certificate will be issued? In order not to change all forms, a certificate is issued confirming the fact of replacement

document.
This is stated in paragraph 3 of the FSS Letter dated October 28, 2011 No. 14-03-18/15-12956
:

“If during a period of temporary incapacity the employee was issued several certificates of incapacity for work and one of them was damaged, a copy is taken

, in which the medical organization indicates the number of the new certificate of incapacity issued to replace the old one, or the medical organization issues a certificate confirming the fact of replacement of the certificate of incapacity indicating the number of the certificate of incapacity being replaced.”

A certificate containing a period of illness can be issued to an employer who has lost sick leave as a replacement for a duplicate.

Arbitrage practice

Firstly, the company is not responsible for incorrectly issued sick leave and errors made in it by the medical organization. In one of the legal disputes, the FSS did not compensate the employer with money based on an error in the document confirming temporary disability: the doctor released the employee from work from September 16 to 29, and the day the certificate was issued was September 25. The courts of 4 instances confirmed that the shortcomings in the executed document are insignificant and can be easily eliminated, and the fund did not provide evidence of the absence of illness in the employee (decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. 306-KG18-3498 dated April 19, 2018).

Secondly, the loss of sick leave does not deprive the organization of the right to reimbursement of expenses by social insurance. During an on-site inspection of the enterprise, the fund’s specialists did not find a certificate of incapacity for work for one of the employees, so they partially canceled the compensation payments. Three courts found that all documents were submitted to the insurance organization, except for the sick leave, according to the police certificate, which was lost by the accountant. The company requested the hospital to issue a duplicate, but was unsuccessful. However, the clinic issued a certificate confirming the issuance of the leaflet and its contents. The courts sided with the company: it confirmed its rights to reimbursement of expenses with other documents.

What does this mean and why is the document needed?

According to Federal Law No. 255 (on payment of sick leave), compensation for a suffered illness can be received on the basis of the provided certificate of incapacity for work. Monetary compensation will be accrued after recovery along with wages. A worker can submit a certificate of incapacity for work to the accrual department within six months from the date of actual recovery.

Errors in sick leave certificates are unacceptable. This point is clarified in Order No. 624n. The presence of errors is the basis for processing and issuing a duplicate certificate of temporary incapacity for work.

At the request of a worker or company employee, a medical institution issues a duplicate sick leave certificate. A duplicate is made on the same form.

The main difference between the original and the duplicate is the tick-shaped mark on the first side of the document.

Three labels are allowed:

1. The inscription "Duplicate".
2. "Primary sick leave."
3. "Continuation of sick leave."

Each mark is placed in the appropriate place. The duplicate does not reflect data on the period of visiting the doctor, and the period of incapacity for work is indicated in one line. The date of issue of the duplicate is set to the actual date, and not the day on which the original was issued.

Registration of a duplicate ballot

An employee retains the right to receive sickness compensation for six months after the closure of the certificate of incapacity for work, recognition of disability, or completion of maternity leave. In a situation where the period is exceeded, the local branch of the Social Insurance Fund will independently decide on the assignment of compensation. Consent can be expected if there are good reasons. Therefore, a 6-month period is, according to general rules, the time when an employee can replace a damaged original copy with a second one. It has the same legal force as the original. The procedure for issuing the second copy is fixed in the order of the Ministry of Health and Social Development No. 624n dated June 29, 2011. Issuance of a duplicate sheet is necessary in the following cases:

• loss or theft of the original;
• mistakes made by the doctor (passport information, stages of the disease, legal status of the employee, etc. are incorrectly indicated), while technical defects are not considered such (letters going beyond the boundaries, extra spaces);
• edits in the document;
• an incorrectly completed ballot;
• damage by an employee.

Important! If the patient was given several sheets - main and additional - only the damaged form is replaced. He returns to the clinic.

The scheme for issuing a new hospital document depends on who lost it or damaged it. If inaccuracies made by a medical institution are detected, documents are lost or damaged due to the fault of an employee, he initiates the registration of a doublet. The second copy is issued by the same health care institution as the original one.

In what cases is a duplicate certificate of incapacity issued?

It is issued in the following situations:

1. loss of the primary document by the employee;
2. doctor's mistake when filling out the form;
3. if there are corrections in the document;
4. the form is not filled out according to the instructions ( clause 56 of the Procedure
   );
5. sick leave was damaged by the employee.

Errors

, which are often found in the design of sick leave:

• incorrect full name;
• incorrect date of birth;
• periods of illness are incorrectly indicated, etc.

Attention

! Technical blots are not considered errors; another sick leave is not required.

Such shortcomings include:

• individual characters going beyond the boundaries of the field;
• extra spaces;
• uppercase, not capital letters;

The maximum period of illness for one certificate of incapacity for work is 30 calendar days. If the month has passed and the person continues to be ill, according to the decision of the medical commission

the sick leave is extended and a new document is issued, which is a continuation of the previous one.
In the new form, in the field “Continuation of the certificate of incapacity for work,” the number of the first sick leave
.

With long-term treatment, a third and further sheets may be prescribed as a continuation of the second sheet.

Do I need to change all sick leave certificates if one is damaged? No, a duplicate is not required to continue the certificate of incapacity for work - only the form in which the error was made is changed.

Algorithm for obtaining a duplicate

1. A certificate from the employer confirming the failure to provide sick leave (now the procedure for obtaining a duplicate has been simplified, so a certificate may not be required). It is standard with two seals - rectangular and stamp. It indicates the full name of the company, legal form, and visas for the manager and chief accountant of the enterprise.
2. An application addressed to the head physician of the clinic, which contains the patient’s personal data, the number and date of registration of the original ballot, the reason for the disappearance or failure to provide sick leave to the employer. If it is simply spoiled/damaged, then the original document is also attached.
3. A medical commission is created in the hospital to resolve the issue of satisfying the request to restore the document. The decision is made in writing, indicating the number of the sheet to be duplicated.
4. Based on the decision of the commission, the attending doctor draws up a doublet.
5. The commission checks the duplicate and signs and enters the newly issued ballot into the registration journal.

A sample application for the issuance of a duplicate sick leave certificate in .doc format is available at this link

The sheet lost by the patient must be restored by the medical institution. When the papers are lost by the employer, the staff of the medical institution will most likely refuse to issue a second copy. The employee ceases to be responsible for the safety of the sheet as soon as he handed it over to his accountant or the personnel department of the enterprise.

Important! To avoid intentional loss of papers, you need to take a receipt from the employee who accepted the document.

The need to restore lost or damaged originals arises as a result of force majeure (natural disasters, fires, etc.) or due to the negligence of an employee responsible for the safety of sick leaves. In both situations, the company creates a committee to investigate the incident. The commission describes all missing or damaged documentation, confirming this with acts of government agencies, for example, a certificate from rescuers about a fire or natural disaster, a certificate from the police about a theft, an act from public utilities about a flood in the office. The conclusion of the investigation committee, together with a written request for the issuance of a second copy, is sent to the health care institution.

In case of negligence, a document can be restored if compensation has not yet been paid for it. There are several options here:

1. An employee whose ballot has disappeared, at the request (and not the order, since the employee is not to blame for what happened) of the employer, contacts the clinic to obtain a duplicate. The medical institution is obliged to issue him a second copy according to the scheme outlined above. It is better not to mention that the sick leave was lost by the employer.
2. Request from the management of the organization to the medical institution. Since the legislation does not provide for the re-issuance of a document due to the carelessness of the accounting department, then (not) satisfying the request is the right of the clinic.

When the benefit has already been issued to the employee, the company will not receive a duplicate, and the social insurance fund will not reimburse the company for the costs incurred. However, the Russian court is not so clear: in practice, there are decisions where not only the missing certificate, but also certificates from the clinic about its issuance, calculations of compensation carried out by the employer, etc., were recognized as the basis for reimbursement of expenses. But in a normal situation, compensation for the sick employee is paid by the company itself and/or withheld from the person responsible for the missing ballot.

How is a duplicate sick leave issued?

For the second copy, the form and filling rules are the same as for the original. The nuances of filling out the repeat form are summarized in the table.

Table 1. Features of the duplicate design

Issuing a duplicate does not require additional certificates. An exception is the situation when several sick leaves were issued during a long illness. The number of the additional/main certificate of incapacity for work, which is indicated in the certificate, also changes in the duplicate.

Do part-time workers need a duplicate?

Today it is not uncommon for a person to be employed in several companies, not only at his main place of work, but also part-time. It is possible to combine internally (in one organization) and externally (in different companies). In the first situation, the employee is given one ballot, which he provides to his employer; in the second, the employee retains the opportunity to receive compensation for temporary disability from all of his employers, provided that an employment contract has been concluded with him, and not a civil law contract. When an employee is an external part-time worker, the health care institution is obliged to issue him several original certificates of incapacity for work for each place of work. The number of sheets issued depends only on the number of official jobs the person has and whether he worked for them during the billing period - this is 2 years before the illness. Each sick leave has its own number. Copies for calculating compensation are not acceptable.

External part-time workers are given as many original sick leave certificates as they have places of work

To provide sick leave to an employer where the employee works as an external part-time worker, a check mark is placed in the document in the “Part-time” box. Typically, health workers are satisfied with the information received from the patient, but may require a certificate from a second place of work.

Important! If the time worked in the second place is less than 2 years, then only one sick leave is issued, and the employee can choose where he will receive sick leave benefits. To prove incapacity for work, the second employer is provided with a copy of the original certificate. It is certified by the doctor who carried out the treatment and the head of the medical institution.

When will reimbursement be denied?

If the farm paid the employee benefits and then lost the certificate of incapacity for work, then the Federal Social Insurance Fund of Russia will refuse to reimburse the benefits.
The position of officials is set out in the letter of the FSS of Russia dated July 17, 2013 No. 15-03-11/12-7761. It is as follows. Reimbursement of expenses is possible based on the original or duplicate of the sick leave certificate. The FSS of Russia will not accept other documents. A copy of the sick leave is issued when the original is lost by the employee or contains errors. If the employer loses it, the legislation does not provide for the issuance of a duplicate.

Certificates from hospitals containing information about the issuance of certificates of incapacity for work, according to officials, do not apply to financial documents. Therefore, they cannot confirm social security expenses. Let us note: in support of their position, officials refer to subparagraph 3 of paragraph 1 of Article 11 of the Federal Law of July 16, 1999 No. 165-FZ and paragraph 18 of the Regulations approved by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of February 12, 1994 No. 101. They state that that expenses that are not supported by documents are not accepted for offset, as well as when the law is violated.

In addition, the FSS of Russia believes that in order to prevent the unjustified issuance of duplicate certificates of incapacity for work, their position should be communicated to the relevant officials in medical institutions (letter No. 15-03-11/12-7761).

However, the judges are not so categorical in their assessments. In the decision of the Seventeenth Arbitration Court of Appeal dated March 13, 2012 No. 17AP-1262/2012 -AK, the arbitrators supported the enterprise. The reason for the dispute with the FSS of Russia was precisely the presentation during verification of a duplicate, and not the original document. According to the judges, the re-issued sheets with calculations of benefit amounts attached to them constitute evidence of the occurrence of insured events and confirm the actual issuance of sick leave to employees, and also make it possible to determine periods of temporary disability.

At the same time, the arbitrators rejected the officials’ argument about not accepting duplicates on the grounds that the original could have been executed with violations. It was also taken into account that the employees submitted sick leave in a timely manner. The judges also considered that in case of loss of the original sick leave, the legislation does not prohibit the employer from contacting the medical institution to obtain a duplicate in order to reimburse the expenses incurred.

Authentication of paper copies

According to the FSS, every year organizations discover about 2.5 thousand fake ballots and their copies, which allow people not to work and receive benefits. You can find many resources on the Internet that sell fake documents. Therefore, the issue of verifying the authenticity of certificates of incapacity for work is very relevant. Unfortunately, today the legislation does not allow companies to create a unified register of issued paper sick leave, so there are several ways to check the originality of the bulletin:

1. Independently, having studied the form of the certificate of incapacity for work. It should be blue (the squares are yellow), with darkening around the edges, made from paper similar to that used to make paper money. Such raw materials include protective fibers; they can be seen under ultraviolet light, and under infrared light the paper completely changes color to green and red. Watermarks, sheet number, barcode - all this can be found on this document.
2. An official request to the medical organization that issued the sick leave or to the Social Insurance Fund for information. A written request is usually written in any form and contains the number of the form being checked, the date of its registration at the clinic, its OGRN, address and full name.
3. Checking the document number against the database of invalid forms, whose Russian social insurance numbers are posted on its official resource.

When the inspectors have established that the ballot is falsified, the company management does not award benefits, since the federal insurance fund will not reimburse the costs incurred by the employer in paying such compensation. If the forgery is discovered when the payment has already been made, then the employer has every right to deduct the entire benefit from the guilty employee, but not more than 20% of each salary or next compensation. Upon dismissal, unpaid benefits can be recovered in court. An employee who submits false papers faces charges of fraudulent activity (Article 159.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), if the data has already been included in social insurance - in such a situation, the employer is obliged to report the scam to the police. If the fund is not yet aware of it, then the employer can keep silent about the fake - they won’t get anything for it.

Precisely one of the reasons for introducing electronic sick leave into the Russian healthcare system is to reduce to zero the possibility of employer deception. While the complete transition to digital analogue has not yet occurred, the system is still being tested.

Loss due to employee fault

If the employee himself has lost his sick leave, he should personally contact the medical institution where he was observed during the period of incapacity and where he was given the original form with a request to issue a duplicate form.

But this can be done only after receiving a certificate from the place of work, which will indicate that sick leave was not provided. With this certificate you need to come to the clinic, where they will then assemble a medical commission. It will decide whether to issue a duplicate sick leave certificate or not, and whether the grounds are sufficient.

For your information

Members of the commission establish the number of the previously issued original sick leave form, as well as all the information it contained. All this is transferred to the doctor who treated the employee, and based on this information, he issues a repeat document.

Issuance of electronic sick leave

The law on the issuance of electronic ballots has been in force since July last year. As of May 2018, more than a million electronic certificates of incapacity for work had already been issued in the country. The leaders in this area are mainly the regions of the European part of Russia - the Belgorod, Lipetsk regions, Mordovia and Chechnya, as well as the Trans-Ural Kuzbass. The Nenets Autonomous Okrug switched completely to electronic sick leave. Digital sick notes not only cannot be faked, but they are also easier to fill out and impossible to lose, which saves entrepreneurs from red tape and courts with government agencies, and data on all issued certificates of incapacity for work are stored in a single register. However, the paper copy still has legal force. The patient decides which document to receive - electronic or printed - but it is worth noting that not all medical organizations work with an electronic system for issuing sick leave.

Certificate in form No. 4-n

What do you need to get a digital sick leave?

1. Written consent to the processing of personal data.
2. One-time written permission to issue a ballot in electronic form.
3. Registration of the patient and his employer on the State Services Internet portal, so you don’t even have to come to the clinic to get sick leave.

Important! The document is not issued in person, it is impossible to lose or spoil it, therefore they do not make duplicates of electronic sick leave.

After filling out the digital newsletter, the doctor signs the document with his enhanced qualified signature and the signature of the clinic. If the illness lasts more than 15 days, the electronic version of the sick leave will also be signed by the chairman of the doctors’ commission. After this, it is sent directly to the Social Insurance Fund to assign appropriate compensation. All participants in the treatment process simultaneously receive access to the digital version of the sick leave, and the doctor gives the patient a digital version number, which is submitted to the accounting department. If a citizen needs paper proof of being on sick leave, he will receive a special coupon, which will contain almost the same information as in its electronic counterpart.

Using the number, the accountant finds a digital sheet in the register, sees the date of registration, the name of the institution, counts the days of illness, however, the diagnosis will remain closed to him. Then the company’s financial officer calculates and issues compensation, sending the information directly to social insurance. Payment for paper and digital options is the same.

Reasons why benefits may be denied

Decor

So, we have figured out in what cases and circumstances a sick leave certificate can be lost, and how to get a duplicate of the document - the next most important question. The duplicate is subject to the same requirements as the original.

This is filling out with a specific pen, and in the places designated for writing. But there is one difference here: not all periods of extension of the certificate of incapacity are indicated, but only the start and end dates of the treatment period.

The document can be filled out either in written form or printed on a computer. After closing the sick leave, all empty cells are crossed out in order to avoid additional signatures and extensions of dates. Also, when issuing a duplicate, a V is entered in the duplicate column .

After which it is signed by the responsible person and the final date is indicated. The medical commission checks the absence of errors in the sick leave certificate and signs it.

It is recommended by law to fill out the lines “primary” and “continuation” in the new document as a reason for issuing a duplicate. This information affects the procedure for payment of compensation, as well as the amount.

You may also be interested in the article “Deciphering hospital codes,” from which you will learn additional information about medical designations in the strict reporting form.

Calculation of sickness compensation

To pay it, an insurance situation must arise - 1) illness or injury to an employee, 2) care for a sick family member, 3) quarantine isolation of an employee, children under 7 years old or incapacitated relatives, 4) aftercare, 5) prosthetics, etc.

Benefits are calculated according to the following rules:

1. The first three days in case of illness or injury are paid by the company, the rest of the time is paid by social insurance, for other reasons, payments come from the Social Insurance Fund budget from the beginning of the stay on the ballot.
2. Compensation is accrued for the entire period of sick leave. Exceptions are listed in Article 9 of the Federal Law No. 255-FZ of December 29, 2009: they take into account legal removal from work if wages were not accrued during this period.
3. How many years of insurance experience, so is the benefit.
4. To find out the average pay for a day shift, add up all the payments for a two-year period for which insurance was calculated taking into account the work of other policyholders, then divide the resulting number by 730.
5. Then determine the percentage of compensation based on the number of years insured.
6. The calculation of children's sick leave is carried out as follows: 1) 10 days are paid according to the usual scheme, from the 11th there is only half of the average payment per day.

Table 2. Calculation of compensation

Example. Viktor Ivashchenko was on the ballot for 10 days, his work experience was 8 years (full compensation). For 2016, he received 720 thousand rubles (when calculating sick leave, the maximum possible earnings limit will be taken into account - this is 718 thousand), for 2017 - 730 thousand.

Salary amount for 24 months: 1 million 448 thousand.

Average daily earnings: 1 thousand 938 rubles 56 kopecks

Compensation for 10 days of illness: 19 thousand 835 rubles 62 kopecks.

Important! When compensating external part-time workers, the same principle is used, however, there is a nuance: if a person has changed several employers during the estimated time, then he needs to receive certificates from all of them in Form No. 4-n, having issued a benefit from any of the current employers at his own discretion.

An individual entrepreneur can also receive a sickness subsidy if he makes regular payments to social insurance. In a situation where an individual entrepreneur is officially employed somewhere else, he can count on double compensation - both as an individual entrepreneur and as an insured employee.

Limits on sick pay

1. The income limit for calculating the average daily wage, the maximum value is not more than 2,017.81 rubles.
2. From the date of the mark on the patient’s non-compliance with the procedure for being on sick leave, the average earnings are calculated on the basis of the minimum wage.
3. Caring for relatives has its compensation limits.

Video - How to restore a sick leave certificate if lost

Table 3. Limits on sick leave payment

Experts advise you to familiarize yourself with the nuances of calculating compensation described in Article 7 No. 255-FZ. Once you figure it out, you can get the maximum from the state fund and the company. For example, it is worth considering the possibility of issuing a ballot for all family members in turn: mother, father, grandmother, or determining which family member has the most profitable option for paying for a certificate of incapacity for work.

Procedure for replacing a certificate of incapacity for work if lost

The procedure for replacing a certificate of incapacity for work if lost due to the fault of the employee is as follows:

1. The employee receives a certificate from the employer stating that the sheet was not provided;
2. The employee writes an application to the clinic for a duplicate and attaches a certificate;
3. Documents are sent to the place where the sick leave was issued;
4. A commission is formed at the clinic, which makes a decision to satisfy the request - the commission’s decision is documented, it is noted which sheet is subject to restoration;
5. A record with a decision to issue a duplicate is sent to the attending physician for re-formation of the document.

If the sheet is lost in the employer’s organization, then the actions are different:

1. The employer forms a commission that determines the reasons for the loss;
2. If this is force majeure, then an application is made to the clinic with a request to issue a certificate due to an unforeseen force majeure circumstance (for example, a fire);
3. If this is the employee’s fault, then an attempt is also made to restore the certificate at the clinic;
4. Upon receipt of a refusal from the clinic, the costs of paying benefits to a disabled person are written off either as expenses of the organization or reimbursed at the expense of the guilty person.

Do part-time workers need a duplicate?

If a person works in several companies at the same time, he is issued certificates of incapacity for work for each place of work. Since each sheet has its own individual number, in case of loss or damage, duplicates are issued for each original.

There are several nuances to this situation. For each place of work, a person must be employed on the basis of an employment contract. Sick leave is issued at the place of employment if the person has been working there for at least 2 years. In other situations, a certificate of temporary incapacity for work is issued only at the main place of work.

Important! If he has been working at the same place for less than two years, he can only be given one sick leave. But the employee has the right to choose which organization he will receive it. For another organization, a copy of the original, certified by the seal of the attending physician and hospital, is provided. Cash compensation is not returned; it is needed only to justify missed working days.