21.06.2019
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5 minutes.
A certificate of incapacity for work is confirmation that the employee was absent from his place of employment for a justified reason. It is also a document for calculating and accruing funds for missed days. Every person should know what actions to take if they have lost their sick leave, and what to do in such circumstances.
Sheet of temporary incapacity for work: basic information
The form is issued only for days of illness and rehabilitation (including for caring for a child, another relative, during pregnancy and childbirth) by the health care institution in which the working person received the necessary treatment. This is an important official document, money is paid on it. But, like any other document, it can be lost. You need to have an idea of how to restore sick leave in case of loss and how much time is given to receive your money in full.
Further actions depend on who is responsible for the incident. It is not only the employee himself who becomes the reason for the loss of a document, sometimes this is due to the fault of management. A medical professional may fill it out incorrectly, then the former patient will not receive his money for the missed days. A worker needs to clearly understand what to do if a sick leave certificate is lost (due to his own fault or the negligence of another person).
There is a certain procedure for issuing sick leaves. Healthcare enterprises that have the appropriate permission to fill out the forms of this document are required to adhere to the instructions prescribed in the Order of the Ministry of Health and Social Development of Russia dated June 29, 2011 N 624n (as amended on November 28, 2017) “On approval of the Procedure for issuing certificates of incapacity for work” (hereinafter referred to as the Procedure). Deviation from these norms leads to problems for the worker and his management. The FSS will not accept a document for reporting on funds paid.
You need to clearly know what to do if the employer has lost sick leave and does not want to pay for it. You must obtain a secondary copy. It has the same legal powers as the original.
Attention! Management does not have the right to refuse compensation for periods missed due to illness if a duplicate is brought to the accounting department.
What is a duplicate?
A duplicate of a sick leave certificate is considered the same legal document on the basis of which compensation for the time spent on sick leave for the entire period of treatment occurs. It often becomes necessary for people, after receiving the primary document, to take a duplicate. Is it possible to restore sick leave if lost?
Issuance of a duplicate sick leave certificate is possible only in two situations: incorrect completion or loss. If this is the second case, but it is also divided into loss by the employer or employee. But there is also such a situation as force majeure circumstances with the employer.
With the appropriate conclusion, the medical institution has the right to issue duplicates.
Loss of sick leave: consequences
The fact of loss of a document does not have legal consequences. But the payment of benefits will be delayed exactly the same number of days as it takes to recover. It does not matter who is to blame for this fact; you must contact the medical institution where the initial sheet was originally issued.
The benefit is accrued within 10 days from the calendar date when the sheet is brought to the accounting department. Cash is issued on the next payday. It is important to understand what to do if you lose your sick leave in order to receive your compensation for sick days on time.
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.
Document recovery
The loss of a closed certificate of incapacity for work does not mean that the employee will no longer receive benefits. It is necessary to undertake restoration and issue a new form, which will be marked as a duplicate. All actions are regulated.
Obtaining a second copy of the sick leave is required if the money has not yet been transferred to the employee. If the payment has already been made, then there is no point in restoring it.
There are legitimate reasons for refusing to issue a secondary document. The main one is this: the applicant did not provide a certificate from his management stating that the funds were not transferred to him. Upon presentation of this paper, the former patient does not have the right to refuse. You need to know what to do if a medical institution does not agree to issue a repeat document. Complain to the FSS!
Legal basis
All recovery steps are specified in the Procedure for the initial issuance. Incorrect registration may lead to denial of compensation for days of incapacity for work. Therefore, the doctor must fill out all fields correctly.
Procedure for issuing a duplicate
You must contact the health care organization that issued the primary document. It is better to visit the same doctor from whom the employee received treatment. If this is not possible for any reason, then you need to go to an authorized doctor.
Attention! The doctor has the right to demand from the applicant a certificate from the employer confirming the absence of payments for missed days. Management is obliged to provide it within 3 days from the date of writing the request. Based on this, a duplicate sick leave certificate will be issued.
The form must be filled out taking into account the same recommendations as the original document. Only in the “duplicate” column you will have to check the box. The sick leave will have a different series and number, but its legal force is exactly the same as the main sheet.
The document was lost by the employee
Both the employee and the employer himself may be to blame for the incident. When a worker has lost his medical certificate, he needs to contact the health care organization where he received treatment. You need to have with you the main document of a citizen of the Russian Federation and a certificate from the management about the absence of payments for lost sick leave.
There are certain requirements for the certificate:
- Issued on the company’s letterhead (if there is none, then on a regular sheet) indicating basic data - full and abbreviated name of the enterprise, full name of the manager, address of location.
- It is certified by the signatures of the company’s management and accounting department, as well as two main seals.
- Contains an indication that the funds were not given due to the loss of the form.
If the certificate is completed incorrectly, it will not be accepted. Consequently, compensation will not be transferred to the employee. After registering a written request from a former patient for the issuance of a secondary document, a medical commission is convened, and it makes a positive or negative decision.
To quickly receive a duplicate, you must provide the details of the lost document. If they are absent, the process may take several days. The commission makes a decision in favor of the former patient. Information about re-issuance is entered into the patient’s record and into a single database.
Sick leave was lost due to the fault of the employer
All certificates of incapacity for work must be recorded by the company and must be kept for 5 years. But, if a loss is discovered, the following actions must be taken to restore:
- It is necessary to assemble a commission of those who occupy leadership positions - director, chief accountant, head of human resources.
- The commission must find out the reasons for what happened.
- It is also necessary to identify the culprit. There are two options - loss due to force majeure or the fault of one of the employees. Emergency situations include fire, flood, man-made or other disaster, and other cases.
Regardless of the reason for the loss, you must contact the medical organization that issued the primary document. You must present a report on what happened, drawn up on the basis of the commission meeting. According to it, the medical institution will issue a duplicate of the sick leave.
All payments must be made in full. If it is determined that a specific employee is to blame for the loss of the document, then it is necessary to recover from him the costs that the employer incurred to obtain a duplicate.
If the employees of the medical institution are to blame
Employees of a medical institution may also be to blame for the loss of sick leave. If such circumstances exist, you need to write an application for a duplicate and obtain it from the chairman of the medical commission. If the attending physician messes up the form when filling it out, you must issue a new one. Make an appropriate entry about the damage. When preparing a new document, the following requirements are met:
- You cannot use a ballpoint pen. But you can use feather, gel or capillary.
- Only black ink can be used.
- All entries must be made in block letters.
- You cannot go beyond the lines.
If these requirements are not met, the sick leave is considered spoiled.
If the employer or FSS employees discover that the document was filled out in violation, they must contact the medical institution to correct the errors. The employee is paid benefits in full and without delay. It’s not his fault what happened!
When it's no one's fault
Sick leave may be lost due to circumstances that are in no way dependent on the will of the person. These are cases such as fire, flood, and other natural disasters. If such an incident occurred, the procedure for issuing a duplicate is as follows:
- convening a commission at the enterprise;
- drawing up a report on what happened;
- contacting a medical institution with an act to issue a duplicate.
It is important to know! If benefits have already been paid for lost sick leave, then issuing secondary documents does not make sense.
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.
Electronic newsletter
Now they are starting to use certificates of incapacity for work in electronic form. This minimizes the risk of losing them. In the near future, all medical institutions in the country will switch to electronic document management. But it may happen that the digital version of the sick leave will also be lost.
To restore it, you need to contact the FSS branch to which the employer is “assigned”. There is no need to convene additional commissions or go to a medical facility. An electronic version of the document will be issued in the same format.
For the employer's organization, the introduction of electronic sheets has continuous advantages: there is no need to create a separate archive or register documents in a special journal. Losing a digital sick leave is almost impossible. This can only happen due to a computer failure at an enterprise or a man-made disaster. But there is always a copy in the FSS. .
An electronic certificate of incapacity for work has the same legal force as a paper version. If the doctor has drawn up just such a document and sent it to the sick person’s place of employment, the management must make payments in full.
What to do if your certificate of incapacity for work is lost?
Before determining the procedure to follow in the event of loss of a hospital certificate, it is worth referring to the legislation.
In 2009, the government of the Russian Federation introduced amendments to Federal Law No. 255-FZ. They concerned issues of compulsory health insurance, namely social benefits, including compensation for temporary disability, which should be provided by the Social Insurance Fund (SIF).
Important! To receive cash payments in full, you need to present a correctly executed sick leave certificate, which will confirm the existence of an insured event.
The certificate of incapacity for work is a blue form with light yellow fields. Letters should be located within the cells and not go beyond the edges. Words are entered using a printing device or in writing in capital letters. For this purpose, only black ink is used.
The doctor should not make mistakes or corrections, otherwise the patient will have to issue a duplicate.
If such a document is lost, then you need to contact your doctor again to get a duplicate. The course of action depends on the person responsible. Both the employee and the employer, for example, an accountant in the process of calculating benefits, can lose sick leave without bringing it to the place of duty.
The employee’s task is to bring the sheet to the employer and transfer it to the accounting department; then the person who received the paper is responsible for its safety.
Loss of a document by a medical institution
If a sick leave certificate is lost directly in the hospital due to the fault of its employees, then the citizen needs to write an application for a duplicate, then a commission will be passed and the document will be issued.
If a replacement is necessary due to damage to the form, you should issue it again, but at the same time strictly observing all the filling out requirements. It's worth remembering the following:
- It is not allowed to use a ballpoint pen for filling, while capillary, gel, etc. pens can be used.
- The ink must be black.
- Entries are made in block letters.
- The text must remain within the designated cells.
- If there are errors in it, then a new document must be drawn up.
In fact, quite often these requirements are not met, and responsible employees of the employing organization do not make complaints about such matters. But if it was necessary to replace the document because it was drawn up incorrectly, then the responsible employees are most likely extremely demanding in terms of execution, and in this case you need to know all these rules so that you do not have to re-issue the sick leave a third time.
Documentary proof of loss
Since a sick leave certificate is a document, its loss can lead to adverse consequences (of course, if this document has not expired - read more about the period for which sick leave is issued).
Losing sick leave is a serious violation, especially if it was due to the fault of an accounting employee. After such an incident, the head of the enterprise must sign an order to create an investigation commission that will identify all the factors of the incident.
The commission will document and certify the fact of loss, and after verification, management will submit a request for a duplicate sick leave to the medical institution.
