On July 1, 2021, Federal Law No. 86-FZ of May 1, 2017 came into force, which amended Art. 13 of the Federal Law of December 29, 2006 No. 255-FZ “On compulsory social insurance in case of temporary disability and in connection with maternity” and Art. 59 of the Federal Law of November 21, 2011 No. 323-FZ “On the fundamentals of protecting the health of citizens in the Russian Federation.” This law legalizes electronic sick leave, which from July 1 will acquire the same legal status as a paper certificate of incapacity for work.
The transition to electronic sick leave in 2021 in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation will be carried out in stages, depending on the level of preparation for the new system of interaction of all participants in the process. Officials are talking about both organizational and technical preparation for working with electronic sick notes: this, in particular, requires providing medical staff with computers and an enhanced qualified electronic signature, as well as an Internet connection. According to Tatyana Lototskaya, Acting Head of the Department for the Organization of Insurance Payments of the Federal Social Insurance Fund of the Russian Federation, by July 1, about 700 organizations out of 12,000 in all constituent entities of the Russian Federation were ready to work with electronic sick leave.
What is this anyway?
Let's start with the fact that an electronic sick leave certificate is a full-fledged replacement for its paper counterpart, only without a physical medium. The electronic sick leave is stored in the Social Insurance Fund (FSS) system and actually does not fall into the hands of either the employee or the employer - everything is filled out online, you don’t even need to download the document.
The FSS began promoting this initiative in 2021, but at first it was promoted sluggishly, because the format itself was in an experimental form, and hospitals took quite a long time to switch to the new mode of operation. The active phase of implementation began in 2021, by which time the FSS had managed to introduce the possibility of settlements and payments on its part, so there were more reasons to switch to electronic services.
As you might have guessed, in 2021, electronic sick leave turned out to be very useful, and those organizations that previously did not have time to connect to the system hastily began to switch to electronic document management. In April 2021, we set a record for issuing certificates of incapacity for work in a new format.
Website data fss.ru
Confirmation of experience
To calculate the length of service, a personnel service employee or accountant will only need a work book. If for some reason the required entry is not there, then the following documents can confirm the length of service in a specific period:
- TD;
- military ID;
- reporting with information on the payment of contributions (applies only to those persons who worked as individual entrepreneurs).
For a quick calculation, you should calculate the length of service of employees at least once every six months. This will help to avoid errors in calculations.
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Is it worth it: pros and cons
As with everything in the world, the system of electronic sick leave certificates has its pros and pitfalls. But – spoiler alert – there are significantly more goodies. Let's take a look.
Advantages of electronic sick leave:
1. Process automation. Registration of a certificate of incapacity for work in electronic form reduces the number of body movements on all sides: it is easier and faster for a doctor to fill out a file rather than running around with printouts, an employee does not have to carry a piece of paper in a file to work (and forget it at home for three days in a row), the employer does not have to store these sheets and fill them out.
2. Reduce the risk of errors and reduce verification time. Most of the information is filled out on the form once, and then entered automatically, so that errors on the part of the hospital are minimized.
3. The employee will not lose his certificate of incapacity for work and will not have to go out to get a new one. One of the main advantages of an electronic sick leave is that a dog will not eat it, a child will not paint it, and a gust of wind on the subway will not blow it away. You laugh, but HR officers and accountants have no time to laugh, they do this all the time.
4. The risk of receiving false certificates is reduced. With electronic sick leave, the employer can be sure that he is not paying for a fake illness, after which the employee returns with a luxurious tan and a vague explanation. You cannot buy an electronic certificate of incapacity for work during the transition. Of course, the risk of having “familiar doctors” remains, but, you see, it is lower.
5. The payment procedure is simplified. Since the Social Insurance Fund took over the calculation and transfer of benefit payments, headaches for employers have decreased.
6. Storage and accounting costs are reduced. A nice bonus: the policyholder does not need to store sick leave certificates for his employees, either in paper or electronic form. All this information is on the FSS servers, and the employer has an order of magnitude less hassle.
Disadvantages of electronic sick leave:
1. It's not easy to fix a mistake. If an employer made a mistake when filling out an employee’s certificate of incapacity for work, then it will not be possible to correct it “in two clicks.”
2. No one ruled out a “system error”. Any system sometimes glitches. The servers are down, the program is crashing, the Moon is in Capricorn, well, you get the idea. During the time of use, FSS was not noticed in frequent failures, but there is always a risk.
3. You become dependent on electricity, the Internet and computer performance. But such is the 21st century.
How to fill out a certificate of incapacity for work
The certificate of incapacity for work has two parts that must be filled out.
For most of it, information is entered by the doctor, and the second is filled out by the HR employee responsible for maintaining such documents.
Sick leave is processed by machine, so it is important to comply with all filling requirements, otherwise you will have to issue a duplicate.
All entries are made:
- only in Russian;
- in black (but in no case with a ballpoint pen);
- block letters;
- without skipping cells, starting from the first;
- without violating the boundaries of fields and cells intended for recording;
- without errors or blots.
An important condition for providing medical care is maintaining medical confidentiality.
Therefore, the diagnosis does not fit into the sick leave. Instead, the digital code “01” is indicated, which means the disease.
The designations “02” and “03” hide injury and quarantine, respectively.
Important: upon receiving sick leave from an employee, the HR officer must first make sure that the first part is filled out correctly. In particular, in the correct spelling of employee data. In the future, you should indicate the correct name of the organization and fill in all the necessary cells. Otherwise, the FSS simply will not accept such a document.
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How to connect?
To start using the electronic sick leave system, an organization needs to complete a number of simple steps:
1. Conclude an agreement with the regional office of the Social Insurance Fund for information interaction.
2. If you still have not acquired a strengthened qualified electronic signature, then now is definitely the time - it is the one that is used to sign the certificate of incapacity for work on the part of the employer. You can get a signature at accredited centers; find the nearest one here.
If you already have UKEP, make sure that it is compatible with the Unified Integrated Information System (UIIS) “Sotsstrakh” FSS.
3. Register the policyholder’s personal account on the FSS website. To do this, the director of the company must be registered as an individual on the government services website. If he has a confirmed account with government services, then he will be able to register a company on the FSS website. You can log in to your personal account using your government services login and password.
Personal account fss.ru
4. Start using it. This can be done through the policyholder’s personal account on the FSS website or using special software - for example, “Preparation of calculations for the FSS”, which can be downloaded from the fund’s website. But most accounting programs, including our beloved 1C, can also be integrated with this system. You can look at the full list of programs on the FSS website, here.
5. Don’t forget to inform your employees that they can now receive electronic certificates of incapacity for work, otherwise they will continue to bring you stacks of paper.
How is sick leave paid for child care?
Instead of a salary, the employee receives benefits for the entire time he is on sick leave.
It is paid in case of child care, entirely by the Social Insurance Fund. But only within a certain limit.
Above is a table where it is reflected. If during the calendar year an employee (or more often an employee) changed jobs, then you can check with him whether such sick leave was taken or ask the previous employer.
For further calculations, you will need information such as the number of days of sick leave, salary and insurance coverage of the employee.
The calculation algorithm is quite simple:
- Determine average earnings per day. To do this, you need to take the amounts received over the past two years and divide them by 730. If the employee’s length of service is less than six months, then the basis for the calculation is the minimum wage.
- Multiply the resulting number by the number of days of sick leave.
- Apply to the resulting number a coefficient depending on the insurance period. It is similar to that used when calculating benefits for the sickest employee. All leaves, including maternity leave, are included in the calculation of length of service.
Important: part-time workers can receive payment at both jobs (if they are with different employers). To do this, you must receive two copies of the sick leave.
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How to work:
Let's see how the process of obtaining an electronic sick leave goes in practice.
1. The doctor obtains the employee’s written consent to process personal data and issue an electronic sick leave certificate and fills in the data. When the sheet is ready, the doctor tells the employee the sick leave number and issues a coupon.
2. The employee must provide the sick leave number to the employer. If he suddenly lost his ticket - oh, those workers and their dogs! –, then you can find out the number in your personal account on the government services website. In short, he won’t get away with it.
3. The employer searches for sick leave by the number and SNILS of the employee, fills out his part of the certificate of incapacity for work and sends it for verification to the Social Insurance Fund.
4. The FSS checks the sick leave and assigns its status. Next, benefits are paid.
As you can see, everything is extremely simple and without dancing with a tambourine.
The influence of length of service on the amount of benefits
The specifics of calculating length of service and its impact on the amount of sick leave benefits are enshrined in Federal Law No. 255-FZ of December 29, 2006. The latest changes to this regulatory act were made on July 3, 2021 after the release of Federal Law No. 250-FZ. It indicates how to correctly calculate the length of service on sick leave 2021, the interest on the payment of benefits depending on the amount of length of service.
Sometimes length of service does not affect the amount of benefits. Each possible situation should be analyzed separately.
In case of personal incapacity
If an employee of an enterprise falls ill, he is always paid the required benefit in the amount of 100% if he was injured during the performance of his duties or received an illness in connection with his professional activities. In all other cases, the amount of benefits is affected by length of service:
- if the total work experience does not exceed 5 years, then the employee will be paid only 60% of the average earnings;
- with a total duration of work from 5 to 8 years, in case of sick leave, 80% of the average salary will be accrued;
- if the total length of service is more than 8 years, then the benefit will be paid in full in accordance with the average daily earnings.
Benefit for caring for a sick child
Sometimes workers need to care for their children or adult relatives in case of their illness. In this case, the amount of the benefit will depend on the following factors:
- general experience;
- number of sick days;
- forms of treatment;
- age of the sick person;
- the degree of his relationship.
The benefit must be calculated in accordance with the data from the table (percentages of the employee’s average earnings are indicated):
| Who is sick | Form of treatment | Total work experience | ||
| Less than 5 years | 5 – 8 years | More than 8 years | ||
| Own child | At home | 60% for the first ten days, for the rest of the time - 1/2 | 80% for the first ten days, for the rest of the time - 1/2 | 100% for the first ten days, for the rest of the time - 1/2 |
| In a medical institution | 60% | 80% | 100% | |
| Family member | At home | |||
What will happen to me if I don’t connect?
Just as in the case of electronic labor records (link), no one will punish you for continuing to use sick leave certificates on paper. Just like no one will provide benefits for switching to electronic format. The choice of method for registering sick leave remains with the employer. The state seems to be telling us: “If you don’t want it, don’t eat it. But it’s delicious.”
Considering the new reality, in which such concepts as the closure of borders, companies and complete quarantine have appeared, it is still worth thinking about switching to electronic document management as much as possible. Don't believe me? Ask companies that tested all new features in advance and set up remote access for their employees even before self-isolation hit.
