Lee County enters tri-county medical examiner agreement

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BY CHUCK VANDENBERG

PCC EDITOR

MONTROSE - After more than a year spent looking for a regular county medical examiner, Lee County has entered into three-county agreement to share the service.

At Tuesday's regular meeting of the Lee County Board of Supervisors the board approved the agreement to share costs of a medical examiner with Des Moines and Henry counties.

The agreement is a Memorandum of Understanding between the three county boards and Great River Health Systems. GRHS would provide the physicians and any deputies and handle the administration of the examiners duties..

The agreement, which still requires full board of approval of all county boards and the GRHS board of directors, would require GRHS to provide a "doctor of medicine and surgery, a doctor of osteopathic medicine and surgery or an osteopathic physician to serve as County Medical Examiner for the benefit of Des Moines, Henry and Lee counties."

Lee County Supervisor Rick Larkin told the board the ME would probably be one of the Emergency Room doctors as 24/7 rotation so deputies could be appointed quickly if the approved ME is staffing the emergency room.

Under the agreement GRHS, or the approved Medical Examiner, would have authority to appoint deputy medical examiners, but the cost of those would come out of the agreed upon budget with no additional costs to the county.

The counties would each agree to pay the examiner $150 for each death investigation with an annual total combined minimum of $30,000 (200 deaths). In the event there are less than $30,000 the counties would remit a balance payment to the examiner based upon services provided in each county.

The balance payment would be calculated by taking the number of medical examiner deaths in each individual county divided by the total number of such deaths for all three counties combined to determine a percentage of the balance payment each county would make.

Each county would also have to pass a resolution approving the physician designated by GRHS. Each county would also have to contract with Medical Examiner Investigators to serve at the direction of the named Medical Examiner. Fees to those individuals would be paid separately from the ME budget.

The proposed agreement is a two-year agreement that would go into effect July 1 and run through June 30, 2019.

Lee County is currently utilizing Lee County EMS director Bill Young as it's medical examiner investigator and has relied upon retired Lee County physician Eugenio Torres as it's medical examiner on a per-service basis when needed.

 

Des Moines County, Henry County Iowa, lee county board of supervisors, Lee County Iowa, Medical Examiner, shared agreement

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