Instructions for Reporting a Death
In Hospitals, Nursing Homes, or Care Facilities: Only authorized staff, such as physicians or nursing staff, should report the death.
For Deaths at Home:
- Under Hospice Care: The RN or LVN from the hospice agency can report the death.
- Not Under Hospice Care: Law enforcement must be notified to report the death.
How to Report: Call the main line at (214) 920-5900 and select the option for investigations. If no investigator answers, they may be on other calls, and you can leave a voicemail.
Voicemail Priority: Voicemails are returned based on priority.
- Urgent responses to law enforcement at a death scene
- Hospice nurses at a decedent’s home
- Justices of the Peace reporting a death
- Hospital or facility deaths.
Information calls will be returned after all death calls are handled.
Deaths that are Reportable to the Medical Examiner’s Office
Under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 49.25, the following deaths must be reported to the Medical Examiner’s Office:
- Deaths within 24 hours of hospital admission: When a person shall die within twenty-four hours after admission to a hospital or institution or in prison or in jail.
- Unnatural deaths: When any person is killed or dies an unnatural death, except under sentence of the law.
- Unidentified bodies: When the body or a body part of a person is found, and the person is unidentified, regardless of whether the cause or circumstances of death are known.
- Deaths under suspicious circumstances: When the circumstances of the death are such as to lead to suspicion that the death was caused by unlawful means.
- Suicides: When any person commits suicide or the circumstances of the death are such as to lead to suspicion that the death was caused by suicide.
- Deaths without medical attendance: When a person dies without having been attended by a duly licensed and practicing physician, and the local health officer or registrar does not know the cause of death.
- Deaths of children under six: When the person is a child who is younger than six years of age and the death is reported under Chapter 264, Family Code.
- Physician uncertainty: When a person dies who has been attended immediately preceding their death by a duly licensed and practicing physician or physicians, and such physician or physicians are not certain as to the cause of death and are unable to certify with certainty the cause of death.
These reporting requirements ensure thorough investigations into deaths that may have legal or public health implications.
