2023 Wisconsin Act 174

* Section 991.11, Wisconsin Statutes: Effective date of acts. “Every act and every portion of an act enacted by the legislature over the governor's partial veto which does not expressly prescribe the time when it takes effect shall take effect on the day after its date of publication.”

  Date of enactment: March 22, 2024
2023 Senate Bill 176   Date of publication*: March 23, 2024

2023 WISCONSIN ACT 174

An Act to create 69.02 (3) of the statutes; relating to: requiring the Department of Health Services to establish and encourage best practices for coroners and medical examiners.

The people of the state of Wisconsin, represented in senate and assembly, do enact as follows:

Joint Legislative Council prefatory note: This bill was prepared for the Joint Legislative Council Study Committee on Uniform Death Reporting Standards.

Current law specifies certain types of deaths that require an investigation by a coroner or a medical examiner, who then completes the medical certification. The medical certification is the portion of a death record that provides the cause of death, manner of death, injury-related data, and any other medically-related data. Death records are registered with the Office of Vital Records, which is supervised by the state registrar in the Department of Health Services (DHS).

The bill requires DHS to establish best practices for coroners and medical examiners for completing medical certifications and investigations of reportable deaths, in consultation with organizations of coroners, medical examiners, and forensic pathologists, as well as any other organization that DHS determines to be appropriate. The bill also requires DHS to make available and encourage use of the established best practices by any office of a coroner or medical examiner, and to periodically review and update the best practices, if necessary.

174,1 Section 1. 69.02 (3) of the statutes is created to read:

69.02 (3) In consultation with organizations of coroners, medical examiners, and forensic pathologists, and any other organization determined to be appropriate by the department, the department shall establish best practices for coroners and medical examiners for the completion of medical certifications under s. 69.18 (2) and investigations of death under s. 979.01. The department shall encourage use by and make available to any office of a coroner or medical examiner the best practices established under this subsection. The department shall periodically review and, if determined necessary by the department, update the best practices established under this subsection.