Subcommittee adopts modest accountability step for delayed death certificates; requires viewing of EDRS tutorial for those who will sign them

Lawmakers on a Senate subcommittee advanced SB 194 after testimony that delayed signatures on death certificates routinely impose legal and financial burdens on grieving families.

Sponsor Senator Williams Graves said Virginia law requires death certificates be completed within 72 hours and called current compliance “inconsistent at best and ignored at worst.” The substitute requires boards to ask at licensure renewal whether an applicant’s scope reasonably includes signing death certificates and, for those who will, to view the existing online tutorials provided by Virginia’s Electronic Death Registration System (EDRS) and attest they viewed them.

Multiple funeral directors testified the delays impose real costs on families and funeral homes — refrigeration and delayed cremations — and urged accountability. Scott Johnson, general counsel for the medical society, said previous complaint-and-discipline processes exist through the Board of Medicine but argued the EDRS video alone may not change behavior for long-practicing physicians; he asked that the statute permit applicants to indicate they reviewed comparable educational materials as an alternative.

Committee members debated two substitute versions (transcript notes version numbers) and adopted line amendments to require viewing for those whose scope includes signing death certificates; the subcommittee then voted to report SB 194 (Ayes 5, Nos 0). The measure moves to further Senate consideration.