THE Social Security System (SSS) continues to improve its processes to make it more convenient for its members to transact business with the agency. The latest innovation that now makes it easier for employers to notify the SSS of the sickness of their employees is the online submission of the sickness notification, an important requirement in the availment of sickness benefits.
Sickness benefits are daily cash allowances given to qualified SSS members with a minimum of four straight days of illness under the regular Social Security (SS) program. For employed members, sickness benefits are granted as long as the member’s company sick leaves in a given year have been fully consumed.
Both employers and employees must comply with the 10-day notification period. Employees should notify their respective employers by submitting the prescribed CLD 9N form within five days from the start of their home confinement, and employers should then notify the SSS manually or electronically within five days from receipt of the notification form.
Based on existing rules on sickness-benefit claims, the employer should advance an employee’s sickness benefits according to the approved sickness notification. If the employee has informed the employer of the sickness on time, but the employer was late in filing the sickness notification with the SSS, the said worker will be entitled to the full amount of sickness benefit from the employer. However, the employer’s reimbursable amount from the SSS will be reduced as penalty for late notification.
The online facility is expected to reduce the number of cases of late filing by employers, who are required to notify the SSS within five days from receipt of their employees’ notification forms.
According to SSS’s medical evaluators of sickness claims, thousands of employers fail in complying with the timely submission of the notification. With the online facility, employers can promptly notify the SSS at their convenience.
The employer must be a registered user of the SSS web site before it can access the online facility for the electronic submission of sickness notifications. Submissions of sickness notifications are done through the e-services menu of the SSS web site.
In submitting the online notification, employers should provide the member’s SS number; confinement start date; type of claim, whether SS or Employees’ Compensation (for work-related sickness); confinement location, whether hospital or home; number of days of illness; and the physician’s license number. Within 30 days after submitting their notifications online, employers are required to submit to the nearest SSS branch the system-generated transmittal list, hard copy of the sickness notification for each employee and the supporting documents submitted by the employees.
Apart from sickness notifications, the SSS also observes a one-year prescriptive period for filing of sickness-benefit reimbursement, which should be one year from the date of discharge from hospital confinement.
With this online facility in place, employers now have no reason to be late in the submission of their
sickness notifications.
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For more information about the Social Security System (SSS) and its programs, call our 24-hour call center at (632) 920-6446 to 55, Monday to Friday, or send an e-mail to member_relations@sss.gov.ph.
Susie G. Bugante is the vice president for public affairs and special events of the SSS. Send comments about this column to susiebugante.bmirror@gmail.com.
3 comments
sir/mam
ilang ba dapat makuha yung sickleave if nag file ka for it
thank you hope na ma notice
Bkt wla prin notification sa email ko kht approved ma sickness benefit claim ko?thanks
Hi ma’am good afternoon…. follow up koe lg po sana yung sickness application ni rixcel formacion…matagal na kasi po tun