What has changed in sick pay since 2021?
The main change in the procedure for paying sick leave for employees is that now benefits will be paid not only by the employer, but also by the regional branch of the Social Insurance Fund, in which the employer is registered as an insurer. In fact, the benefit will be divided into 2 parts, which can be paid in different ways and at different times.
The first part of the benefit consists of payments for the first 3 days of temporary disability (staying on sick leave). The employer is responsible for these payments, who makes them at his own expense without the possibility of subsequent reimbursement from the Social Insurance Fund (Part 2, Article 3 of Federal Law No. 255-FZ of December 29, 2006). The benefit for the entire subsequent period of temporary disability, starting from the 4th day of illness, will be transferred directly to the employee by the Social Insurance Fund.
At the same time, for the entire 2021 and subsequent periods, the application procedure for receiving temporary disability benefits will remain. To receive sick leave benefits, the employee must still contact his employer, provide a sick leave certificate and write a corresponding application.
Sickness benefits in 2021 will be calculated according to new rules. So, if the benefit for a full month turns out to be below the minimum wage, then it will still be calculated based on the minimum wage. To do this, the current minimum wage is divided by the number of calendar days of the month (28,29,30 or 31) and multiplied by the number of calendar days during illness (Federal Law No. 478-FZ of December 29, 2020).
The procedure for obtaining sick leave has also undergone a number of changes in 2021.
Cheat sheet on the article from the editors of BUKH.1S for those who do not have time
1. From 2021, the first 3 days of sick leave are paid by the employer, and the subsequent days by the Social Insurance Fund.
2. If the benefit for a full month is below the minimum wage, then it will still be calculated based on the minimum wage.
3. To receive sick leave benefits, an employee must contact his employer, provide a sick leave certificate and write an application.
4. In some cases, an employee may apply for sick leave benefits directly to the Social Insurance Fund.
5. Employees can now control the payment of sick leave benefits in the personal account of the insured person on the Social Insurance Fund website or through a special mobile application “Social Navigator”.
How to get sick leave in 2021
The new procedure for issuing temporary disability certificates is regulated by Order of the Ministry of Health dated September 1, 2020 No. 925n. Now the employee has the right to independently choose what kind of sick leave he needs - electronic or traditional, on paper. In this case, electronic sick leave is issued only with the written consent of the patient.
Sick leave for up to 15 calendar days inclusive is issued by the doctor independently, and for periods of temporary disability exceeding 15 calendar days, sick leave is issued and extended by decision of the medical commission. Sick leave is issued for the entire period of incapacity, including non-working holidays and weekends.
Paper sick leave is issued upon presentation of a passport or other identification document. Electronic sick leave is issued upon presentation of a passport (another identification document), as well as a SNILS number.
If a citizen at the time of the onset of temporary disability is employed by several employers and was employed by the same employers in the 2 calendar years preceding the year of issue of the certificate of incapacity for work, then he is issued several paper certificates of incapacity for work for each place of work.
Having received a sick leave certificate, the employee can apply for the appointment and payment of sick leave benefits.
Is it possible to close?
Can the b/l be closed during this period? A certificate of incapacity for work is never issued in advance with an end date already marked. Typically, a patient visits a doctor two to three times before the doctor allows him to return to work. Only a doctor can close the form after an examination, and not necessarily the one who opened it.
When closing, it doesn’t matter what date the appointment falls on , the initial criterion is the person’s health. If the patient does not require further treatment, the form is closed.
Applying for assignment and payment of sick leave benefits
The application for the assignment of benefits is submitted by the employee in the form given in Appendix 1 to the order of the Federal Social Insurance Fund of the Russian Federation dated November 24, 2017 No. 578. The application must indicate the specific method of transferring the sick leave benefit - to a Mir bank card, to a bank account or by postal transfer. Please note that the application form will be changed in the very near future.
As a rule, the application is completed by the employer using accounting programs. The employee is only required to provide all the necessary information - sick leave data, as well as details of the bank account to which the benefit will be transferred.
You must apply for sick leave benefits no later than 6 months from the date of restoration of your ability to work or determination of disability. If the benefit is assigned in connection with caring for a sick family member, quarantine, prosthetics or after-care, it must also be applied for no later than 6 months from the end of the corresponding period of release from work (Article 12 of the Federal Law of December 29, 2006 No. 255-FZ ). In other words, sick leave must be provided to the employer no later than six months from the date of its registration. Otherwise, the provision of benefits will be denied (clause 17 of the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated December 30, 2020 No. 2375).
Having accepted the documents from the employee, the employer sends them to the Social Insurance Fund office for payment of benefits. The employer is given 5 days for this. This period is counted from the moment all necessary documents are received by the accounting department of the enterprise.
From January 1, 2022, applications for sick leave will be abolished. To pay benefits, it will be enough to present only an electronic certificate of temporary disability (Bill No. 1062568-7 p approved by the State Duma).
The employer will pay the first part of the benefit (for the first three days of sick leave) to the employee’s card when paying the next salary. The second part of the benefit will be received by the employee within 10 days from the moment the documents are received by the fund department (clause 11 of the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of December 30, 2020 No. 2375).
Common questions and difficulties
Despite the apparent transparency of calculations for compensation for sick days, many questions regularly arise on this topic. Most often, difficulties arise when sick leave falls not just on weekends and/or holidays, but is also combined with other non-working periods, such as vacation or a business trip.
Any person whose employment is official has the right to paid sick leave. However, there are a number of nuances that you should pay attention to. Therefore, we recommend that you read our articles about whether sick leave will be given for 1 day, what are the features of registration and payment for open BL in inpatient and outpatient treatment, the duration of the notice depending on the disease, the rules for extending sick leave through a medical commission.
Independent receipt of sick leave benefits from the Social Insurance Fund
As a general rule, sick leave benefits in 2021 are processed through employers. They are the ones who receive temporary disability certificates and applications from employees, create a package of documents for assigning benefits and transfer it to the Social Insurance Fund.
However, the new rules still stipulate a number of cases when employees have the right to independently apply to the Social Insurance Fund for the appointment and payment of sick leave benefits. This is possible, in particular, in the following cases (clause 7 of the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of December 30, 2020 No. 2375):
- termination by the employer of its activities on the day of application for appointment and payment of benefits;
- impossibility of establishing the actual location of the employer on the day of application for appointment and payment of benefits.
In order to receive benefits on their own, the employee must submit to the Social Insurance Fund an application, a sick leave certificate confirming the fact of temporary disability, a work record book, as well as a certificate of the amount of earnings from which the benefit should be calculated (Part 5 of Article 13 of the Federal Law of December 29, 2006 No. 255-FZ). This set of documents must be sent to the territorial office of the Social Insurance Fund at the place of registration of the employer. Having received all the above documents, the Social Insurance Fund will pay the employee benefits using the details he specified.
Procedure and terms for payment of sick leave benefits in 2021
The procedure for paying sick leave benefits for the first three days of illness is similar to the procedure for paying an employee his salary. The benefit will be paid to the employee on the next day after his appointment, established for the payment of wages in the organization (Federal Law of December 29, 2006 No. 255-FZ).
That is, for the first 3 days of sick leave, the employee will receive money either on the day he receives his salary or on the day the advance is paid, whichever comes first. The benefit for the first 3 days of illness will be transferred to the employee’s salary card.
In turn, the Social Insurance Fund will transfer sick leave benefits for the entire remaining period of temporary disability, starting from day 4, in one of the following ways specified by the employee in the application:
- to a Mir bank card;
- to a bank account;
- through the federal postal service (Russian Post).
The payment period for this part of the sick leave benefit is no later than 10 days from the date of receipt of the required set of documents by the Social Insurance Fund (clause 11 of the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of December 30, 2020 No. 2375).
Where is sick leave paid in 2021 - to the MIR card or any other card?
Are holidays included?
The days allocated for treatment of the disease may include any number of holidays. And this moment will not in any way affect the amount of sick pay or benefits. For example, a person fell ill in early January - on the 3rd, and recovered only by January 11th.
It turns out that the 7th-11th were his working days, and the remaining days were holiday weekends. But all this will be included in total during the treatment period, and will be paid accordingly by the employer.
Responsibility of the employer for untimely transfer of sick leave to the Social Insurance Fund
The absence of the need to reimburse benefits paid to employees may lead to employers delaying the 5-day deadline for submitting documents/registers to the Social Insurance Fund. For these purposes, the legislation provides for administrative liability for failure to submit and untimely submission to the Social Insurance Fund of documents and information necessary for the assignment and payment of hospital benefits.
Employers are responsible for such an offense under Part 4 of Art. 15.33 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (violation of the procedure and deadlines for submitting documents to the territorial bodies of the FSS).
In accordance with this article, failure to comply with the 5-day deadline for submitting the necessary documents to the Social Insurance Fund will entail the imposition of a fine on the head and chief accountant of the employing organization in the amount of 300 to 500 rubles.
Payment of sick leave by the employer in 2021: new responsibilities for organizations
How can an employee control the payment of sick leave benefits?
An important change in sick pay for workers from 2021 is that they can now control the payment of sick leave benefits, in what is called real time.
To do this, the FSS has implemented several free services at once that allow you to find out at what specific stage a particular payment is at and how soon the money will arrive in the employee’s account.
In particular, an employee can now track the status of documents sent for payment of benefits in the Personal Account of the insured person on the official website of the Social Insurance Fund. The login and password in your personal account are the same as in the citizen’s personal account on the State Services website.
Here you can check whether documents have been received by the Social Insurance Fund office, and also track the stages of their passage in the form of certain statuses (document uploaded, document calculated, document paid).
Please note that this opportunity is provided only if the employee has issued an electronic sick leave certificate.
You can also check the payment status through a special mobile application “Social Navigator”. Here you can also get a free consultation from a FSS specialist regarding the procedure for receiving benefits.
In addition, the FSS now operates a hotline. For example, Muscovites can find out when they will be paid sick leave by phone.
How to work with your personal account on the FSS website
You need to log into your personal account through the official website of the FSS.
On the first page, employees can log in through the service recipient’s account by clicking the “Login” button. In this case, authorization is performed by entering a login and password.
In addition, here you can download instructions for working with your personal account.
To enter your account, use your login and password from your personal account on the State Services website.
When the login and password are entered correctly, authorization is performed, and then the service page opens to the user. To view sick leave information electronically, you need to go to the main menu and select “Certificates of Incapacity for Work.”
In this case, a list of certificates of incapacity for work opens in electronic format.
To view information on a specific sick leave, you need to click on its number. After this action, the user receives an electronic certificate of incapacity for work.
To view data for each group of information, click “+”.
The user can view information in his personal account for each sick leave.
