Electronic sick leave: how to get it, pros and cons

Procedure for working with electronic certificates of incapacity for work

Let us recall the current procedure for creating and working with sick leave.

An electronic sheet is created by a medical institution in the Social Insurance Unified Insurance System, after which the number is communicated to the employee, who must transfer it to the employer. The employer, in turn, finds the corresponding sick leave in the UIIS “Sotsstrakh” database, in which he fills in the required fields and certifies the document with an electronic digital signature. After this, the document is automatically sent to the FSS .

What does an employer need?

The employee reports the sick leave number to the organization. The company's personnel officer requests information via the Internet in the Personal Account on the Social Insurance Fund service. To obtain information about the ballot, a SNILS number is also required.

IMPORTANT! The insured employee first goes through the registration procedure in the Social Insurance system in order to be able to issue an electronic document.

When the HR department receives a certificate of incapacity for work, the specialist enters the missing information into the document and corrects incorrectly filled lines (the system highlights errors). It is required to indicate the reason for making the corrections, endorse the document and resend the ballot to the FSS. Actions are carried out in the “To be completed by the employer” tab.

The following information is entered:

name of the enterprise where the patient works;
surname and initials of the chief accountant and director of the organization;
the patient’s work experience and average salary;
the period of incapacity for work and the date when the insured person began performing work duties;
The patient works permanently or part-time.

Based on the information provided, the system automatically calculates sick leave. Information about the amount of benefits is transferred to the Social Insurance Fund.

Changes in working with certificates of incapacity for caring for a sick family member

Order No. 925n establishes the following periods for which a certificate of incapacity for work can be issued to care for a sick child:

up to 7 years – for the entire period of treatment, regardless of the conditions for receiving treatment (outpatient or inpatient)
from 7 to 15 years – the period is not established
over 15 years old – up to 7 days for each case of illness

These rules do not apply to children with disabilities, HIV and other special diseases (See in more detail How the procedure for recording days has changed in relation to sick relatives).

How to connect an electronic sick leave

The first sick leave in our country was issued in 1937, almost 80 years later, it first took on electronic form.

Electronic sick leave began to be issued in 2015, the experiment operated in several regions of the country. From July 1, 2021, everyone can apply for an electronic sick leave, provided that the medical organization and the employer’s organization are connected to the electronic sick leave information system of the Social Insurance Fund. Working with electronic sick leave is simple and straightforward; thousands of companies across the country have already been able to verify this.

Today, electronic sick leave certificates are issued by more than 70% of all medical organizations. During the pandemic, the popularity of this format of sick leave has doubled. Let’s try to understand the benefits of electronic sick leave for an employee, and tell you how to organize work with electronic sick leave for HR and accounting services.

Electronic sick leave. Instructions for the employee

How to issue an electronic sick leave certificate. In most clinics and medical centers, the doctor or dispatcher who issues a home call specifies what type of sick leave, electronic or paper, the patient needs. If the choice was not offered, then the person himself can ask for an electronic sick leave.

If a person is applying for an electronic certificate of incapacity for work for the first time, then they need to fill out a simple paper application. Such a form must necessarily contain the person’s full name and SNILS, as well as his consent to the processing of this data. In each specific medical institution, it is enough to fill out a standard consent form once in order to receive sick leave electronically in the future without any problems.

What does an electronic sick note look like? The sick leave certificate itself and the information it contains cannot be seen without special programs. You won't be able to hold it in your hands. Information about the basis for sick leave and its duration is provided by the doctor, but you can only receive the sick leave number. Sometimes it looks like a printout with a barcode and basic data: document number and date, name of the medical institution, full name and SNILS of the patient, sick leave status. Sometimes the doctor only gives you a number that you need to remember or write down.

How to view information about your sick leave. Recently, the State Services portal notifies users about open and closed electronic certificates of incapacity for work (ELS). The information message shows the sick leave number, its status, dates of validity, the doctor’s name and the name of the medical organization.

If you need information about the amount of benefits accrued during sick leave, then this data can be seen in the insured person’s personal account on the FSS website. There you can see how many days in total you spent on sick leave this year. Please note that all information presented on the website of the Social Insurance Fund applies only to electronic sick leave; data from paper counterparts cannot be viewed in this way. You can also log into your personal account using your account on the State Services portal.

Advantages of electronic sick leave. Electronic sick leave cannot be damaged. Everyone knows how inconvenient it was to use paper sick leave. It cannot be folded; it could easily be torn or dented. With ELN everything is much simpler.

Electronic sick leave can be issued remotely. Doctors who provide treatment remotely using telemedicine technologies have the right to issue an electronic sick leave. This practice will begin to operate on December 14, 2021.

If an employee works part-time in several organizations, then there is no need to issue three separate sick leaves; it is enough to inform each employer of the number of one electronic certificate of incapacity for work.

This year, another new concept appeared - “quarantine” sick leave. Such a document is issued in electronic form, for example, if a person comes from another country or another region and is forced to spend two weeks in an observatory or in self-isolation. Sick leave for workers over 65 years of age during the period of restrictions is also issued remotely and electronically; for this there is a separate code “03”, indicating quarantine. Such sick leave is issued automatically, without a visit to the employer or doctor.

Electronic sick leave. Actions of an accountant or personnel officer

Most employers have been working successfully with electronic sick leave for a long time. In addition, the Ministry of Labor plans to connect absolutely everyone to electronic sick leave in the near future, banning the use of paper format. Paper certificates of incapacity for work will soon become history, and there is very little time left to learn how to work with digital forms of certificates of incapacity for work.

What you need to start working with ELN. To work with electronic sick leave, it is necessary that the company enter into a written agreement with the Social Insurance Fund and be registered in the electronic sick leave information system. To do this, you will need an electronic signature issued by an accredited certification center.

After concluding an agreement, you need to decide in which program you plan to work with electronic sick leave. This functionality is available in most popular accounting and personnel systems, as well as in reporting services. But you can also work directly with the Social Insurance Fund using the policyholder’s personal account or specialized software developed by the fund.

The employee brought his sick leave number, what next? Using the employee’s sick leave number and SNILS, the employer requests electronic sick leave data from the social insurance system. Then you need to fill in the data. In electronic sick leave, part of the data (employee data and company data) is generated automatically. In fact, the employer only needs to fill out data on length of service and average earnings. Once completed, the document is signed electronically and uploaded back into the system. If an error occurs when filling out the data, the document can be edited. The actions you need to take in this case depend on the system you are working on.

How to fix an electronic sick leave certificate. Errors in electronic sick leave are much less common, since most of the data is automatically pulled from different systems and undergoes additional formal and logical verification on the side of the Social Insurance Fund. But sometimes an employer’s representative may incorrectly enter the data necessary for calculating and paying temporary disability benefits. In this case, you can make corrections in the policyholder’s personal account on the Social Insurance Fund website or your usual system by clicking the “edit” button.

“Quarantine” sick leave. Due to the pandemic, in the spring and fall, in different regions of the country, a self-isolation regime was in force for people over 65 years of age and people with chronic diseases. If employees who fall into this category are unable to work remotely, electronic sick leave is issued to them remotely. In such a situation, temporary rules for registering sick leave, approved by the Government of the Russian Federation, apply.

Registration of electronic tax registration takes place remotely. The employer submits to the Social Insurance Fund a register of information about insured employees over 65 years of age and employees suffering from chronic diseases. The information consists of full name, date of birth, SNILS number, residential address and data for calculating benefits. The FSS will check the information and transfer it to the medical organization, where sick leave certificates are generated for each employee. Further calculation and payment of benefits for quarantine sick leave depend on the region - either it will be a traditional credit system, or direct payments from the Social Insurance Fund, if the project is already operating in the region.

Evaluating the work with electronic sick leave, filling out, sending them to the Social Insurance Fund, tracking the status of the document and creating electronic sick leave registers within the framework of the Direct Payments project is easy and convenient in the Taxcom Online Sprinter service. You can verify this by evaluating the operation of the system in a demo version or using the “Test Drive” campaign.

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Sick leave during quarantine

Order No. 925n establishes that in the event of quarantine at an enterprise, certificates of incapacity for work are issued to all isolated and suspended employees . Now a certificate of incapacity for work is provided directly to the sick person, as well as to persons who had contact with him.

According to the new rules, a certificate of incapacity for work can also be issued if there is a threat of the spread of coronavirus infection. A complete list of diseases that allows the use of this standard is given by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of December 1, 2004 No. 715.

In this case, telecommunication technologies can be used to provide medical care.

Rules for filling out an electronic sick leave certificate

The following information is indicated:

name of the company and position of the patient;
TIN and SNILS number;
insurance period during which payments were made to the Social Insurance Fund;
average salary and amount of sick leave accruals;
terms of payment for sick leave by the Social Insurance Fund.

Information in the sections “Certificate of Incapacity for Work” and “Medical Organization” cannot be corrected.

Other innovations regarding certificates of incapacity for work from December 2021

In addition to the above innovations, Order No. 925n contains the following norms and rules:

There is no need to indicate the amount of the benefit on the electronic certificate of incapacity for work (for regions participating in the experiment on direct payments from the Social Insurance Fund)
When filling out a certificate of incapacity for work for pregnancy and childbirth, the calculation can be completed in any of the available ways: on paper (certified by handwritten signatures) or electronically (enhanced qualified electronic signatures are used)
sick leave for more than 15 calendar days must have a note indicating a medical commission, after which the certificate can be extended for up to 10 months; for tuberculosis, this period is increased to 12 months
for inpatient treatment, the date of sick leave must correspond to the date of discharge
a continuation of the sheet can only be issued for the same disease that was indicated in the initial bulletin
periods of incapacity for work on sick leave must be in chronological order, they must be continuous and not overlap with each other, an exception is provided only for the cause of the disease under code “10” - poisoning, complex studies, etc.

How should an employee inform the employer that he has been issued an electronic sick leave?

After the medical organization closes the certificate of incapacity for work in the form of an electronic document (ELN), the citizen reports its number to his employer, who requests in the information system of the Social Insurance Fund of the Russian Federation (EIIS “Sotsstrakh”) the ELN by his number and the employee’s SNILS, fills in information about the employee, employer, information about length of service and earnings and sends them to the Unified IIS “Sotsstrakh” with qualified electronic signatures of the chief accountant, manager and the employer-legal entity.

It is worth noting that with an ELN there is no need to go to the place of work and “hand over” it to the accounting department or personnel - the employee can inform the employer of the ELN number in any way convenient for him - by providing a coupon with the ELN number, telephone communication or the Internet information and telecommunication network "

At the same time, a coupon with an ELN number issued by a medical organization to the insured person is not the basis for assigning insurance payments and is intended to inform the citizen about the generated ELN.

What must be indicated on a sick leave in the “Place of Work” field if the organization has separate divisions?

In the line “place of work - name of organization” it is necessary to indicate the name of the employer of the insured person, registered as an insurer in the territorial body of the Social Insurance Fund of the Russian Federation.

It is not possible to include a division of an organization that is not the employer of a specific insured person in the line of the certificate of incapacity for work “place of work - name of organization.” In the certificates of incapacity for work, in cases where an employee of an organization has an employment contract with his department, the name of the corresponding department should be indicated.

Loss of sick leave due to the fault of the employer

If an employer loses a document confirming an employee’s incapacity for work, a special commission created by order of the head of the organization makes a decision on the situation.

If the cause of loss or damage to the report is recognized as unforeseen circumstances in the form of a flood, fire, or other natural or industrial disaster, then a protocol describing the situation is drawn up for transmission to a medical institution. With the specified document and his own passport, the employee turns to the attending physician for a duplicate confirmation of disability.

If the ballot is lost at the enterprise, the employee receives the due payment amount based on the provided replacement form (duplicate) if the ballot was not taken into account by the accounting department (FSS letter No. 15-03-11/12-7761, 07/17/2013).

A new form will not be issued to replace the one accepted for registration and subsequently lost by the employer. According to the law, a replacement ballot is issued if erroneous entries are found in it or if it is lost by the employee himself, but not in a situation where problems with the document are detected by the employer.

Confirming certificates from medical institutions are not financial documents, and therefore cannot be accepted as confirmation of social insurance expenses (Federal Law No. 165 of July 16, 1999, FSS letter No. 15-03-11/12-7761).

Obtaining a duplicate sick leave certificate is available only to the employee himself and only until the moment when the accounting department of the enterprise carries out the recording of the disability certificate. After this procedure, a replacement sheet will not be issued, since the FSS will not accept these expenses and will not compensate them.

Taking into account the rules for organizing archival affairs in the country, primary documents must be preserved for at least 5 years after the annual reporting period (Federal Law No. 402, 12/06/2011). If, during an inspection carried out by the Social Insurance Fund, it is discovered that there is no valid reason for sick leave, the costs of paying for them are not taken into account.

To avoid suspicion that the employer intentionally lost sick leave to refuse to pay benefits, you can require a receipt from the employee receiving the form indicating receipt of the document indicating the position, date and his handwritten signature. If there is a receipt, the offending employee and the employer may be held administratively liable (Article 192, Article 236 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation).

By the way! Judicial practice shows that reimbursement of benefits is possible in the absence of an original or duplicate sick leave certificate. The decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. 305-KG16-17521 (December 28, 2016) confirmed the impossibility of issuing a replacement certificate if the employer lost it and the legality of calculating payments upon presentation of certain documents, which may include letters from a medical institution (indicating the details of the form of the lost copy, data of the citizen, information about the disease) and copies of the stubs of the issued certificates of incapacity for work.