Saturday, Oct. 22 6 am-noon Hyatt
Questions? Gain insight into the mega-trends that physicians will face as a result of health system reform at TMA’s Fall Conference. For more information, contact the TMA Knowledge Center at (800) 880-7955 or email
knowledge@texmed.org.
What you need to know about electronic death registration
Under state law, physicians involved in the completion of a patient’s death certificate must file the certificate elec- tronically by using the state’s Electronic Registrar Death Registration System at
www.dshs.state.tx.us/vs/requestTER/ default.asp. Failing to use the system could mean a $500 fine from the Texas Medical Board.
State officials will conduct training on the system at the Texas Vital Statistics Annual Conference Dec. 7–9 in Austin. Information on the conference and
how to register will be posted at www
.texasvsu.org.
In the meantime, here are some ques- tions physicians and their staff ask fre- quently:
Why do I have to use the TER system?
The Health & Safety Code 193.005(h) says a person “completing the medical certification shall submit the informa- tion and attest to its validity using an electronic process approved by the state registrar.” This statute took effect Sept. 1, 2008.
How do I sign up for TER? Your facility’s local administrator can sign you up as a medical certifier. You may go to
www.texasvsu.org and sign up online or download a registration form and fax it. You will receive a user ID, a password, and a PIN.
12 TEXAS MEDICINE October 2011
How do I use TER? You will sign into the TER system, com- plete medical tab 3 (cause of death), re- view all information on medical tabs 1–3, and then certify the death record. Once you have certified the record, it will au- tomatically be returned to the funeral home for completion and filing.
How can I be trained to use TER? Use the online training module avail- able at
www.texasvsu-ed.org. Attend the medical certifier sessions offered at a Vital Statistics Unit (VSU) regional or annual conference. Attend a training ses- sion offered in your area or at your facil- ity (upon request only). Review the TER quick reference guide to refresh your knowledge of the TER system.
What if I need assistance? Email VSU at
help-TER@texasvsu.org with questions regarding the use and functionality of the TER system. For a question regarding the interpretation of the statutes or training opportunities, contact your local VSU representative. (Area VSU representative information is available on the VSU webpage.)
Why is it important to use the TER system? The system:
• Provides a faster, more accurate, more complete certificate;
• Provides accurate, complete, uniform data across the state pertinent to cur- rent health issues; and
• Provides data for statistical informa- tion to assess the general health of the population to allocate services, funding and other medical research.
How do I manage the death records for the physicians? Typically when a patient dies, the funer- al home will retrieve the patient and be- gin the process of entering information into the TER system. The funeral home will be made aware of the physician of record.
The funeral home will fill out a Re- port of Death within 24 hours of taking responsibility for the body, and send the report to the local registrar’s office. At
TMA, AMA: Change Medicare data reporting
Public reports on Medicare and private payer data must be valid, reliable, and actionable, TMA, the American Medical Association, and 80 other physician orga- nizations told the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in comments on Medicare’s proposed rules for report- ing performance measurement data. The organizations applauded the inclusion of safeguards that protect pa- tients and physicians in the rule, but said several critical issues must be resolved for physician measurement and public reporting to be effective. In their letter, the organizations called on CMS to make sure that physi-
this point, the funeral home has 10 days to file the death record with the state. The funeral home completes the de- mographic tabs 1 through 5 in the TER system. The record is then assigned through the TER system to the physician of record. The funeral home will email both the local administrator and the physician notifying them that the record is now ready for the medical information to be completed. The physician then has five days to complete the medical tabs 1, 2, and 3, certify the death record, and send it back electronically to the funeral home (completing the medical certifica- tion process will automatically send the record back to the funeral home). The local administrator’s staff mem- bers will complete the information on the medical tabs and check for errors, omissions, and the like. Once all of the information is com-
plete, the physician will certify the re- cord by using the PIN. The record will be returned to the fu-
neral home, and the funeral home direc- tor will verify the demographic informa- tion by using their PIN. The death record is then sent by the
funeral home to the local registrar’s of- fice. They review the death record, as- sign a local file number, and date and send the death record electronically to the state.
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