Family wants Diagnosis on Death Certificate changed

[AtlantaRN, RN]

We had a patient with end stage hiv, he was on our service with same diagnosis, history states same diagnosis.

He has died, and death certificate states end stage hiv as cause of death.

Is it normal to change a cause of death on death certificate after the fact?

I've never run into it. Social worker says doc will say "cardiac arrest" or "respiratory failure", if you ask him; but

i've never done this. We have always used the same ICD-9 code that is on our admission paperwork.

Anyone run into this?

Thanks much

linda

[morte, LPN, LVN]

it would seem a futile effort at sanitizing the document....for wouldnt the HIV then appear in the slot for "contributing conditions"?

[shrinky]

I've had this happen once for the same diagnosis. We have to call the coroner when a patient dies and give them the diagnosis and the patient died of Liver Cancer with Hepatitis and HIV as co morbiditites. The coroner chose to put all on the death certificate and the mom was furious. Anyway he asked us if it was ok to remove it because only he could do so and we didn't have a problem. However in your situation that was the primary diagnosis. Some of our docs write cardiac/pulmonary arrest but also put as a result of________. So I think that it has to remain as a leading cause of the death or why would the person have died of CP arrest? I feel for the families because there is still a stigma attached to the diagnosis in most areas and people are sometimes cruel. Good luck.:typing