In the case of Zabuldygin, everything is somewhat simpler. The main thing is to make sure that his “piece of paper” is really a fiction. And once you are convinced, don’t pay. And Zabuldygin himself will either be deprived of the promised bonus or fired altogether.
The Social Insurance Fund will not reimburse the employer if it detects a fake sick leave. In this case, you will either have to pay for the employee’s illness at the company’s expense, or recover money from the employee through the court. To avoid things like this, you must know about new ways of falsifying sick leave and be able to identify them in a timely manner.
Paper color and quality
A sick leave certificate is a document of strict accountability, the falsification of which will serve as a basis for bringing the employee to criminal, material and disciplinary liability. The sick leave serves a dual function. The first is a financial document that serves as the basis for the payment of benefits. The second - sick leave certifies the employee’s incapacity for work and confirms that he was absent for a good reason.
When an employee submits a sick note, make sure the form is valid and check that the basic security features are present. The form of the sick leave form was approved by order of the Ministry of Health and Social Development dated April 26, 2011 No. 347n. A sample of it can be found on the official website of the Social Insurance Fund, where the protective elements of the form are described. This information can be used to determine the authenticity of the sick leave certificate.
Form color mismatch
The form must be blue with a characteristic background grid. The left edge of the sheet, as well as the columns “Signature of the doctor” and “Signature of the head of the ITU bureau” have a dark blue tint.
Cells for filling out information are yellow; a field with a barcode in the upper right corner, as well as an empty square in the upper left corner - white. In fakes, most often there are white cells instead of yellow, and there is no background grid.
There is no watermark with the FSS logo
Look at the form against the light, you should see watermarks - two ears of corn, above which is the FSS logo surrounded by the words “Social Insurance Fund of the Russian Federation.”
On a fake sick leave certificate, the watermarks do not match the picture or are missing altogether.
Paper quality does not match the original
The sick leave form feels like a banknote and creates a characteristic rustling sound when shaken. Counterfeit forms are usually printed on regular paper, which does not have this characteristic.
No protective fibers
The sick leave form has three types of protective fibers: blue, pink and light green, which, like the FSS logo, are clearly visible in the white square in the upper left corner. On a counterfeit form, as a rule, the security fibers are absent or made in one color.
Wrong seal
The sick leave certificate must contain the name of the medical organization and its address. A discrepancy between the seal and the information about the name of the medical institution may indicate a forgery of the sick leave certificate.
Wrong clinic
Check whether the medical organization included in the form exists. You can check information about the validity of a medical organization, its name and location address using the website of the Federal Service for Surveillance in Healthcare – roszdravnadzor.ru in the “Unified Register of Licenses” section. Similar information can be obtained on the government services portal, as well as in the register of medical organizations of the Federal Compulsory Medical Insurance Fund: ffoms.ru.
Wrong OGRN
The OGRN on the sick leave must correspond to the name and address of the specified medical organization. You can identify your OGRN on the Federal Tax Service website: egrul.nalog.ru.
Wrong doctor
The names of doctors who do not work in a medical organization are indicated. Check the “Physician Position” column on the form. The sick leave must be signed by a doctor who is working in a medical organization at the time the sick leave is issued. You can obtain information about this, for example, by calling the medical organization where the employee issued a sick leave, or by sending an official request. The position should be filled as follows: therapist, pediatrician, surgeon, ENT. Abbreviations are possible: “stomatol”, “ophthalmol” (letter of the Ministry of Health and Social Development dated October 28, 2011 No. 14-03-18/15-12956). On fake forms you may see simply “doctor”.
What signs of a fake sick leave does the FSS indicate?
The procedure for issuing certificates of incapacity for work is established by Order of the Ministry of Health dated September 1, 2020 No. 925n.
This document indicates which medical institutions and which categories of insured persons can issue certificates of incapacity for work, and also provides the procedure for obtaining sick leave. A fake sick leave certificate can be of two types: completely fake or partially fake. In the case of a completely false sick leave certificate, the form of such a document may have the following characteristics:
- watermarks may be missing;
- The quality of the paper and the printing of the form may differ; the hatching lines of a counterfeit form may differ from the original.
Signs of a partially fake certificate of incapacity for work, prepared on a valid form:
- a non-existent medical institution or an institution that does not have the right to issue sick leave certificates and does not have a license from the Ministry of Health with the right to carry out work (services) on the examination of temporary disability may be indicated;
- the name of a doctor who is not actually working may be indicated on the specified certificate of incapacity for work;
- there may be no number or a non-existent number of the certificate of incapacity for work;
- Traces of etching, erasures, and corrections may be visible.
In especially difficult cases, a fake sick leave certificate may have all the signs of a real one: the number is correct, the doctor works in the specified medical institution, which has the right to issue certificates of incapacity for work. However, checking the documentation in a medical institution and comparing the data in this documentation with the data on a fake sick leave may show that there (in the documents and in the sick leave) the patient’s last name or the period of issue of the sick leave, date of issue, diagnosis, etc. do not match.
ATTENTION! A list of fake and stolen sick leave certificates can be found on the FSS website. The Foundation constantly updates it. See also: “Checking sick leave by number online on the FSS website.”
A fake certificate of incapacity for work and an incorrectly completed form are not the same thing. In the second case, when filling out a form that has all the signs of authenticity, errors were made (by the medical institution or the employer), which prevents the FSS from paying for such a certificate of incapacity for work.
In order to avoid mistakes in filling out a sick leave certificate, we recommend that you read the article: “An example of filling out a sick leave certificate by an employer.”
We contact the medical institution or the Social Insurance Fund
To confirm suspicions of falsifying sick leave, you can contact the medical organization that issued it. For example, to clarify information about the fact that sick leave was issued to an employee or to check information about a doctor and other data. Please submit your request in the form of a written request on official letterhead. Please attach a copy of your sick leave certificate to your request. In your request, you can indicate the circumstances or information that served as the basis for doubting the authenticity of the document. Please submit your request on behalf of an authorized person. If you are making an application signed by a person who is acting under a power of attorney or on the basis of an order, attach a certified copy of the power of attorney or order to the request.
Results
A fake sick leave can be of two types:
- on a counterfeit letterhead produced in an illegal manner;
- on a valid form, stolen, processed in any way, in which real data has been changed or invalid ones have been entered.
An enterprise that discovers a fake decides independently what to do with the employee who provided a fake sick leave. Most often, enterprises do not turn to the prosecutor’s office, but limit themselves to collecting damages and dismissal.
A person who decides to use a false document must know that his actions fall under Art.
327 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and are assessed as a criminal offense with serious consequences - imprisonment from two to four years. In the “mildest version”, the violator can get off with a fine, but he will still be provided with a criminal article in his biography. You can find more complete information on the topic in ConsultantPlus. Free trial access to the system for 2 days.
Check the numbers
Check the sick leave number with the Social Insurance Fund. All sick leaves have their own unique numbers. They are located in the upper right corner of the form - under the barcode. These numbers are recorded in the FSS database. To obtain information about the existence of the number, you can call the regional office of the FSS. The absence of a number may indicate a fake. However, this is not a universal rule, since the number of an existing form can be used in a fake sick leave.
By the way, a regularly updated list of stolen and lost sick leave forms over the past seven years has been published on the FSS website. The document was last updated in August; it now contains information about 2,486 sick leaves. The fund recommends that employers check the sick leave numbers presented by employees with the numbers of the forms from the mentioned list. Regardless of the status of the certificate of incapacity for work - “lost” or “invalid” - all sick leave forms listed in the list are considered invalid, and therefore cannot be accepted from employees for payment.
How to recognize a fake
A sick leave certificate is an official document that is issued at a medical institution to confirm the temporary disability of an employee.
This document also serves as the basis for the calculation and payment of temporary disability benefits to a person. Fake sick leave certificates are used not so much to obtain this money, but to justify absence from work. But it is the insurer that makes cash payments - the Social Insurance Fund - that most often detects fraud.
Important: each sick leave form is assigned an individual number. It is easy for an employer or other person to contact the territorial division of the FSS or its hotline and use the number to check the authenticity of the form.
There are about a dozen other signs by which a fake is identified. If the employer does not always check the authenticity of sick leave, then FSS employees are obliged to do so. Having identified the fraud, they notify the employer.
How to punish a “counterfeiter”
You can, as they say, give things full speed. For submitting a counterfeit, the employee faces criminal liability. A fine of up to 80,000 rubles or in the amount of wages or other income for a period of up to six months. Also, for falsifying a sick leave certificate, a worker can be subject to compulsory labor for up to 480 hours, correctional labor for up to two years, or arrested for up to six months (Part 3 of Article 327 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Employers, as a rule, rarely bring the matter to criminal proceedings and limit themselves to dismissing the employee by agreement of the parties or “under the article.”
By the way, the court may classify the fact that the employee received benefits on fake sick leave as fraud (Part 1 of Article 159.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). For such a violation, a fine of up to 120,000 rubles is provided. or in the amount of wages or other income for a period of up to one year. An employee may be subject to compulsory labor for up to 360 hours, correctional labor for up to one year, forced labor for up to two years, or restrict freedom for up to two years, or be arrested for up to four months.
note
If you find inconsistencies in the hospital certificate, check the information with the medical institution or the Social Insurance Fund. Submit official requests to document the fact of forgery. To hold an employee accountable, the fact of forgery must be recorded. To do this, send the document for examination to the FSS.
If an employee submits a fake sick leave, you can subject him to disciplinary action and fire him. The mere fact of falsifying a document does not serve as grounds for terminating an employment contract with an employee. However, in this case, the employee was in fact absent from work without good reason (appeal ruling of the Moscow City Court dated September 8, 2017 in case No. 33-34171/2017). And this can be qualified as truancy (subparagraph “a”, paragraph 6, part 1, article 81 of the Labor Code).
But be careful and control your emotions. After all, if the employee submits documents to the court that confirm that he was absent for a good reason, he will be reinstated at work. Therefore, when you send a written request for an explanation, include a clause stating that the employee can provide other documents to confirm that there was no absenteeism.
When you fire an employee for absenteeism, it is important to follow the procedure provided for in Article 193 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation and the deadlines for bringing them to justice. Ask the employee for a written explanation of the situation. If after two working days the employee does not submit it, draw up a corresponding report. Failure by the employee to provide an explanation does not prevent him from being held accountable.
Meet deadlines
This refers to the time frame for bringing to justice. Thus, apply disciplinary action no later than one month from the day the offense was discovered (Part 3 of Article 193 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation). The day the misconduct was discovered is the date when the employer received the documental on-site inspection report of the Social Insurance Fund (appeal ruling of the Moscow City Court dated September 8, 2017 in case No. 33-34171/2017), or other documents that indicate that the sick leave is fake. For example, a letter from a medical institution stating that the employee was not issued a sick leave certificate.
You can record the date when you received documents confirming the forgery with a memo, an acceptance certificate, or postal documents if the documents were sent by Russian Post.
It is important for the employer to comply with one more condition. You can hold the employee accountable no later than six months from the day the employee submitted the forged document. And based on the results of an audit, inspection of financial and economic activities or an audit - no later than two years from the date of the commission of the offense (Part 4 of Article 193 of the Labor Code).
Draw up an order for disciplinary action. Please familiarize the employee with it against his signature within three working days from the day it was issued. This period does not include time when the employee was absent. If the employee does not sign the order, draw up a corresponding act.
Forgery of sick leave: employee responsibility
The accounting department (HR department) received a fake sick leave: the employee’s liability is provided for in Article 327 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. This article implies liability both for the production or participation in the production of a false document, and for the use of a deliberate forgery.
If it is proven in court that the employee independently prepared a fake sick leave, he will face restriction or imprisonment for up to 2 years. If the sick leave certificate is a false alibi in another criminal case, then the use of such a false document is punishable by up to 4 years.
If an employee knows that the sick leave is fake, but uses it by providing it to his employer, he may face a fine, correctional or compulsory labor, or arrest for up to 6 months.
Moreover, the fact that the employee knew about the illegal origin of the document must be proven in court.
Even if the organization does not contact the prosecutor’s office or initiate a criminal case against the unscrupulous employee, there will still be liability: the employee will be recognized as having missed the period that he was going to “cover” with sick leave. For absenteeism, he may be fired, or subject to other disciplinary action, as well as a fine. In addition, the employee will have to reimburse the company (or the Social Insurance Fund) for the amount of illegally obtained income in the form of payment for a false certificate of incapacity for work.
Material liability
Financial liability for a fake sick leave consists of compensation by the employee who wrongfully received payments for direct actual damage.
According to Part 4 of Art. 15 of Law No. 255-FZ of December 29, 2006, the employer has the right to demand the return of the amount of temporary disability benefits paid to the employee.
Find out how long sick leave is paid here.
The law provides for the deduction of funds from the employee’s salary in case of refusal. It is allowed to withhold 20% of each amount of a person’s monthly earnings.
The employer also has the right:
- recover the full or remaining amount of direct actual damage in court;
- recover from the employee other losses associated with fictitious sick leave (in accordance with paragraph 4 of Article 10 and Article 15 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation).
Watch the video on how to distinguish a fake sheet from a real one.
