Medical Records 101

If you want a copy of your medical records:

Thanks to federal law, you are entitled to a copy of your complete record - including the doctor's notes. Health care providers are permitted to charge for copying and mailing records. Some states have a statutory maximum charge that ranges from ten cents per page to one dollar per page. A facility or doctor may not make it financially impossible for a patient to exercise the right to medical records by charging an exorbitant charge for copying. To save money:

• If your records are in electronic format, you can ask that a copy of your medical record be e mailed to you, or that it be downloaded onto a disk. There is generally no copying charge if a record is sent electronically. The cost of a disk is minimal. 
• If your records are still on paper: you can request specific documents or summaries within your record rather than a copy of the entire record. For example, you can ask for the problem list, medication list, list of allergies, immunization record, most recent history, physical, consultations, operative reports, pathology reports, and/or hospital discharge summaries.

For details about regulations about charges in your state, see Georgetown University's Center for Medical Record Rights and Privacy at http://hpi.georgetown.edu/privacy/ .

• If you need to get a file from a medical institution and have difficulty gettng through to the right person or getting the file, ask for the patient advocate or president's office. They can likely get through on different phones or can send an internal message so help speed up the process.
• If a doctor refuses to give you or your representative a copy of your records, ask another doctor to get them for you. As a last resort, consider going to your state's regulatory authority. As a last resort, you can sue.

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