The News-Gazette had a nice overview of the Coroner's role in determining when an autopsy is performed with an nice easy to follow guide to costs and protocols Sunday:
It's a coroner's job to decide when a death bears closer examination
...
As Champaign County's coroner, it's Northrup's responsibility to determine the cause and manner of death. In this case, given the condition of the body and little known prior medical history, he decided that performing an autopsy was the best course of action.
"I must make difficult decisions every day whether to conduct an autopsy or not," said Northrup, whose office averages about 1,900 death investigations a year, only 8 percent to 10 percent of which result in autopsies.
Since he works in a county with a Level 1 Trauma Center — Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana — deaths in neighboring counties also fall under the jurisdiction of Northrup's office.
And with $123,000 budgeted each year for autopsies, which cost between $1,050 to $2,500 each, performing one after every death isn't financially feasible.
Nor is it physically possible, given that the one pathologist in the Urbana office serves Champaign and surrounding counties.
Full article here with all sorts of additional details and information.
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