Be careful with the sick leave certificates you send to Health Insurance! Some are not compliant and can cost you a lot of money, even if you are acting in good faith!
It can happen that if you get sick, you find yourself stuck in bed, unable to do anything. Nothing serious, but you are completely knocked out. At such times, there is nothing else to do but take a paracetamol and stay in bed, waiting for your condition to improve and your body to recover. Problem: you are supposed to go to work. No choice, so you start looking for a general practitioner so that he can provide you with a precious sick note, to send to your employer within 48 hours.
But here’s the thing, it’s not always easy to find an appointment in such a short time. Between medical deserts and practitioners overwhelmed with patients, it’s hard to find an available slot! However, you absolutely need a work stoppage to be able to rest and take care of yourself. And, if the fever clouds your judgment, you can end up with a fraudulent work stoppage, without you knowing it, which could cost you dearly.
This is what happened to Marina, whose story is relayed by 60 Million Consumers. While she was looking for a practitioner who could provide her with the precious sesame, she ended up landing on the site arret-maladie24.com, which the search engine displayed at the top of the first page of results – this is therefore, a priori, a sign of the legitimacy of the site. There, after filling out a form and describing her symptoms, she obtained a Cerfa certificate of three-day sick leave for the modest sum of 19 euros. And this, without ever having been in direct contact with a doctor, which is normally required to obtain the sesame.
Health insurance has been plagued by this type of fraud for several years now. A first site, arretmaladie.fr, was created during the pandemic, before being quickly closed by court order on November 6, 2020. Since then, it has continued to reappear under various names, such as DrAnsay.com, arret-maladie24.com or dransay.com, claiming more and more victims, convinced that they are obtaining a legitimate work stoppage.
Also, be wary if you come across a site offering you a certificate without an appointment, because Health Insurance systematically takes legal action against those who transmit this type of work stoppage. You then expose yourself to a financial penalty that can amount to up to 300% of the damage suffered by the organization, or even 3 years in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros if it decides to prosecute you for using forgery. We’re not joking!
To combat fake certificates, new highly secure Cerfa forms will be introduced in September and will become mandatory from June 2025. In addition, doctors working for teleconsultation companies will be registered as such by Health Insurance in order to be required to use the electronic transmission of sick leave certificates by amelipro.