APRIL/MAY 2016 EDITION
FROM THE DIRECTOR'S DESK

Congratulations to all Vital Records nominees! On May 4, 2016, DPH held its annual Employee Recognition and Wellness Day event. And I am absolutely pleased to announce that several Vital Records staff members received awards in varying designated categories, noted below. You all represented the State Office superbly, and I could not be more proud of you! Because of your hard work and dedication to pursue excellence in the work that you do daily, we are all winners!

  • Commitment To Excellence (Low THC Oil Registry)
  • Excellence In Partnership ( Valarie Campbell)
  • Excellence In People (Mercedes Bauldwin Perez, Sheila Dennis, and Quentoria Hutcherson)
  • Excellence In Innovation (Robby Braumuller)
  • GAVERS Project (Christopher Harrison)
  • Fitzgerald Award For Leadership (Donna Moore)
CONSTITUENTS' CORNER

Senate Bill 64 does away with voluntary acknowledgments of legitimation (also known as “administrative legitimation”) and makes a number of changes to the Georgia Code which affects the Office of Vital Records.  The Bill passed the General Assembly, was signed by Governor Deal on April 28, 2016, and becomes effective July 1, 2016.  Here are the highlights of the bill:

Voluntary acknowledgments of legitimation which are signed on or before June 30, 2016 will continue to be valid, but there will be no more after that date.  After July 1, 2016, legitimation of babies born out of wedlock can be accomplished only (a) by court order, or (b) if dad marries mom and “recognizes such child as his own.”  

Voluntary acknowledgments of paternity must be notarized, and must be filed with the State Office of Vital Records within thirty days of execution. The following persons are legally entitled to request a certified copy of a voluntary acknowledgment of legitimation or a voluntary acknowledgment of paternity :
  • The guardian or temporary representative of any person who signed it;
  • The child, if he or she is at least 18 years old;
  • The guardian, temporary guardian, or legal custodian of the child;
  • The child’s living legal spouse, next of kin, legal representative, or someone who has  applied in good faith to become the child’s legal representative;
  • A government agency who needs it for official purposes;
  • In response to a court order or subpoena; 
  • An attorney licensed in Georgia who needs it for purposes of legal investigation on behalf of a client;       
  • A licensed child placement agency that needs it for official purposes.
PHOTO IDENTIFICATION REQUIREMENTS
Under Georgia Law, Vital Records are restricted documents and can only be requested by individuals who are eligible to receive them. (Eligibility requirements are described in detail on the appropriate application forms.) To protect against Identity Theft, we require at least one form of photo identification with the application; click here to see what they are.
GAVERS TECHNICAL TIP:
More physicians are signing up to take advantage of the GAVERS electronic registration process. This means that the registration process will be faster and that you no longer will have to “drop-to-paper” after you have designated a participating medical certifier or coroner.
Once designated and after having been accepted by the certifier, the funeral director will receive an e-mail notification stating that the record has been accepted by the medical certifier. (Note: Report a GAVERS issue if your funeral director does not receive the email notifications.) At that point, the funeral home may proceed by verifying the record. If you prematurely proceed with the verification process, you will be prompted with a message to make sure that you are really wanting to “drop-to-paper”.  Dropping-to-paper means that the record will have to be completed manually. In other words, you will have to fax or e-mail the form to the County where the death occurred.

The following message will display if the medical certifier is participating and you are trying to “drop-to-paper”:
If you verify a record and the medical certifier is not participating, you will receive the message displayed below.
DEATH CORRECTION REQUIREMENTS

Effective June 2016, the State Office has a new email address and fax number for current year death correction submissions. All current year death correction requests less than one year old can be submitted by any one of the following methods: All death correction requests over a year must be submitted by mail along with a $10 processing fee in the form of either a check or money order made payable to the State Office of Vital Records. Please do not send cash. Changes for death corrections over a year will not be processed if payment is not received.

Please note the following Death Correction Requirements:
  • All requests to change an informant must include a notarized statement from the informant authorizing the correction along with the necessary documentary evidence that supports the correction(s).  
  • If the funeral director is making the request, a statement on their letterhead stationery along with the evidence is sufficient.  
  • The statement must include the name of the decedent, date of death, county of death, and clearly specify the items to be corrected.  
For additional assistance with specific death corrections, please contact your local Regional Consultant.
  DEATH REGISTRATION CYCLE

The information collected on death certificates is essential to monitor the health of Georgia residents. These data allow Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to track fatal conditions like cancer, heart disease, drug overdose, infant mortality, as well as any new or emerging conditions. Without the data from the death certificate, disease outbreaks might go unnoticed, and thus go unaddressed.

Another major concern for using death certificate data is timeliness. In order to respond effectively to new diseases or increasing deaths, it is important to have the completed death certificate available as soon as possible. If completed death certificates with cause of death information are not filed for several weeks or months after the date of death, the opportunity to mount an effective response might have passed. Therefore, timely death registration is essential to DPH and CDC.

Timely death registration also benefits the surviving families of the deceased. The grieving friends and families require a completed death certificate to manage their affairs, obtain survivor benefits from Social Security, and file death insurance claims. It is a disservice to surviving families and next of kin to force them to wait an extended period of time for a death certificate to be completed. Sending the records to the Social Security Administration in a timely manner is also an important fraud prevention measure. The sooner Social Security receives a completed certificate, the sooner they can deactivate a SSN and prevent that number from being used for fraudulent purposes.

Going forward, Georgia Vital Records is looking for ways to monitor and improve the timeliness of death registrations in the state. It is our goal that 80% of all death records will be completed and filed within 10 days of death. To that end, we have started tracking the cycle time of death records filed in each county. This is a tool to help you track the number of records filed in your county. In the future, we will be looking to our top performing counties to find best practices and more about their process to learn what makes them most effective.

We appreciate all of the work our counties do to complete death records, and we look forward to working with you to improve death registration cycle time, and in doing so, improve our ability to monitor the health and well-being of our Georgia residents.

BIRTH RECORD RATINGS: THE TOP FACILITIES
Congratulations to the medical facilities whose April ratings for timeliness and completeness have placed them in the top rankings in the state of Georgia. The scores were calculated using the new, stricter standards from NCHS. Click on the link below to see the birth record ratings for April and May 2016.

Georgia Department of Public Health | State Office of Vital Records | Phone: (404) 679-4702 |
Fax: (404) 679-4730 | andrea.dennis@dph.ga.gov | dph.georgia.gov/VitalRecords