Sick-note fraud at work: how it actually happens — and how to stop it

By PRACPROOF (PTY) LTD · July 2026

Most workplaces treat a medical certificate as self-proving: letterhead, stamp, signature — accepted. That habit is exactly what sick-note fraud exploits. Understanding the three ways fraudulent certificates are produced makes clear why the traditional checks miss them, and what actually works.

A fully fabricated note: fictional practice, invented doctor, template downloaded or copied from a real certificate. These are the easiest to catch — the practitioner fails an HPCSA register search, the practice number fails a PCNS lookup, the phone number goes nowhere. The catch: someone has to actually run those checks, and in a busy HR office, mostly nobody does.

The employee really did see a doctor — for one day's illness. The certificate is then edited: the return-to-work date stretched, the duration changed, sometimes just a digit. This is the dangerous category, because every checkable detail is real. The doctor is registered, the practice number is valid, and if you phone, the practice confirms the consultation happened. Only the document itself is dishonest — and no register lookup can see that.

Certificates issued for a fee without any real consultation, sometimes on genuine stationery. These sit in between: the paperwork can look perfect, and detection usually depends on patterns — the same distant practice appearing across unrelated employees, or certificates that always land on Mondays and Fridays.

A stamp is stationery. A letterhead is a design. Both are trivially reproduced, and both survive editing — an altered certificate keeps its authentic stamp. Visual inspection catches only the laziest forgeries; checklists of "signs of a fake" help (we publish one), but they are probabilistic, not proof.

1. Verify the document, not just the doctor, whenever possible. Certificates carrying a cryptographic verification QR are checked in seconds: scan it and you see exactly what the doctor signed — dates, patient name as printed, summary — and any post-issue alteration fails the check. It costs nothing and needs no account. 2. Make verification routine, not accusatory. A standing "we verify all certificates" policy removes the awkwardness of singling anyone out — and its deterrent effect does most of the work. 3. Keep the fallback checks for paper-only notes: HPCSA register, PCNS practice-number lookup, and a phone call to an independently sourced number. 4. Encourage local practices to issue verifiable certificates. The more doctors issue QR-verified documents, the less time your HR team spends on the phone. Doctors use PracProof free.