Completing Death Certificates

When you or your staff are initiating death certificates, it is very important to use/reference the resources listed here:

• Birth and Death Registration Handbook (updated 6/07) (If you do not have a copy or are missing pages, please re-order a new copy using this form).
• Death Certificate Guidelines (updated 09/05) - issued by the Medical Examiner/Coroner
• Communicable Diseases (updated 12/09)- must be reported to the Coroner's Office
• Medical Data Supplemental Worksheet (updated 1/06) - used for the confidential portion of the fetal death certificate
• VS9 Burial Permit (updated 1/08) - used for Emergency files, Ship-ins, Fetal Death Certificates, and EDRS outages. All other burial permits are available through EDRS.

Death Registration

Note that counties using the Electronic Death Registration System (EDRS) will replace the need for Hand-Filing, Cross-Filing, and Fax-Filing.

The web-based Electronic Death Registration System (EDRS) provides the ability for coroner's, funeral directors, doctors, and hospitals to submit electronic death certificates for registration 24 hours a day. Visit http://edrs.ucdavis.edu/edrs/index.jsp or call the office for more information or to obtain a user account. When using EDRS to file with Santa Clara County, use/reference the resources listed here:

• Death Registration Policy for Santa Clara County (updated 05/08) - each county may have different requirements.
• CA-EDRS Universal Fax Sheet (updated 7/07) - to request changes to a current record.
• Modification Request Form - request a change to something about EDRS

Ordering Certified Copies

Please use this Application for Death-Related Purchases (updated 1/10).

Service Promise

Our death registration staff will make every attempt to fulfill death certificate orders received via drop-off or mail within 2-business days. If you have "ship-outs" going out of the country that need to be processed more quickly, you can 1) come to our office to pick-up orders or 2) send a prepaid express delivery envelope for faster return service.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about our filing services, causes-of-death, etc., please call our office using our dedicated funeral home line at 408-885-2008 or use the EDRS "Submit Medical Information (MI) for Local Registrar (LR) Review" feature.

Updates

We send periodic updates to all our stakeholder funeral homes via email/mail. For a list of recent updates, see the attachments below.

• Look-up California Health & Safety Code

• Funeral Home Update August 2008
• Funeral Home Update March 2008