Your Personal Medical records – Ownership?

[Joel Goodman]

+1 on having your new doc request the records. It feels like double dipping to charge for them. But to me the whole idea that you don't get a copy of your medical work at the time you have it done is out of date and paternalistic. People move around and it would be better to have the stuff for future needs. When I had an MRI for a shoulder issue I made sure I got a copy of the disc and the report.

[Frank Drew]

Can records be transferred electronically to make it easy and cheap?

Yes, and when medical record keeping becomes the norm patients will, or should, have access to their own records and can download and print, or electronically file, what they need.

[Jason Roehl]

I guess I'm the devil's advocate. Just because the records are about you doesn't make them yours--you and your insurance company paid for treatment, not the creation of records. The records are a byproduct that is useful to the doctor as he diagnoses and treats other maladies you later have. And the fact that he is closing his doors doesn't mean that he can get rid of the records--there are a lot of record retention requirements, so you aren't saving him any money by relieving him of the requirement to shred them. If you were a small business and kept records of your customer's purchases to better market to them and to better address their needs in the future, would you consider those records the "property" of your customer?

I think just because it's become common practice doesn't mean it's right. I'd say that the 4th Amendment applies, as this is all part of being secure in one's person. As for the actual record-keeping, whatever the reason, it's out of hand. The last few times I've been in a hospital or ER (with someone else), anytime a nurse does anything, 3/4 of the time in the room is at a computer, drilling down through a complex menu system, even when just taking some vital signs. I think it would be a good idea to get a full copy of everything done at the time of service, just in case there is litigation in the future. Don't need their computers crashing inexplicably...

[Al Launier]

It would seem to me that if a practitioner was closing his doors a reasonable fee would be appropriate for your medical records to be transferred to your new doctor. HOWEVER, I would certainly hope these would be the original records & not "copies". Further, any records not wanted, if that's realistic, should be destroyed with your review & approval. Only your current doctor should have your medical records. He/she can decide if necessary to convey pertinent medical information about you to other medical professionals if necessary & with your approval.

[Len Mullin]

I needed a copy of my medical records for insurance reasons, I asked for a complete copy at the Dr's office and got them for free. It took a couple of days to get them, and I expected to pay for them, but, when I went to pick them up the receptionist just handed them to me and wished me good luck. When I asked about paying for them, and she stated that she was told not to charge anything.
Len

[Stephen Tashiro]

From recent experiences in getting medical records for some friends, 25 cents a page is typical charge for paper copies of records from hospitals and nursing homes. Perhaps by coincidence, the local Office Max charges about the same to copy a paper page to an electronic format.

The outpatient lab at the local Memorial Medical Center will give a the patient 1 free paper copy of results of things like MRIs. They will even give the patient one free CD of the scan.

It's a rather typical experience to give a doctors office detailed medical records and give detailed information to the technicians who do preliminary interviews and then find that the physician who arrives at the examination room doesn't know this information. The physician only knows what a quick glance at "the chart" shows. If you request the "complete record" from a hospital, you will get a lot of paper that nobody will ever use. It's costs less to pick a more specific option.

[Phil Thien]

I wonder how useful medical records are to a new physician.

I suppose it depends on the patient and any chronic conditions or long-term medications.

[John Pratt]

The latter part of military career was in health care administration, which included the filing, maintenance, and copying of medical records. I haven't worked in the field as a civilian but here's my take on it from that perspective. The records we created for patients are Government property, even when they relate to civilian dependents of military personnel. Yes, mine contain personal, sensitive medical information about me but they don't belong to me.

I remember early in my career that a soldier would just carry their medical records from appointment to appointment, and from duty station to duty station. Late in my career I was not even allowed to see my medical records. The records keeping facility always threw HIPAA out there and that they wanted to ensure the records were not lost in transit. Ironically, the records department at that installation had a reputation for losing records on a regular basis.

I wonder how useful medical records are to a new physician.

I suppose it depends on the patient and any chronic conditions or long-term medications.

In the military your medical records mean everything when it come to the VA. If you do not have an ailment, diagnosis, MRI, X-ray, etc in your records, it did not happen. The onus of proof is on the soldier to provide the evidence it is service related when filing for a disability. I witnessed a soldier go round and round with the VA trying to prove that the leg he lost was due to his service in Iraq becuase his records were lost. I know I have two copies of my records just for safe keeping.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

This is not uncommon. It is also not uncommon that they will not give you a copy directly, but may send a copy to another physician. If they will not give you a copy directly, they make a sudo copy. The difference is that of full photo type copy of everything unfiltered compared to an edited version that may have some of their notes removed.

[mike holden]

FWIW, I am being treated at the University of Michigan Hospital. There is a website, powered by epic, that allows me to communicate with my doctor(s) at UofM and see the test results almost as quick as they see them.
The interesting and pertinent part of this is that I can download a copy of my total record in what is called a "LUCY" file to take to my personal physician.
I now carry a thumb drive with all my medical records in my pocket.
The only problem is how to notify any emergency people of this data if I am incapacitated. I am thinking of a medic alert bracelet directing them to the thumb drive.
Hopefully, this "LUCY" data idea will catch on.
Mike

[Eric DeSilva]

The 4th Amendment applies to being free from unreasonable search and seizures by government action--I don't think I see any government action here, nor do I understand the relationship to search and seizure.

Think about this: If I commission a woodworker to build me a custom set of cabinets, does that mean that I have the right to demand that he turns over all his paperwork and plans when he's done? The answers is "of course not." I'm not sure I see it any differently in the GP context. As for "he should do it for free," I see another side there too. If he's retiring, figure he has 50 years worth of medical records on thousands of patients. If he says "sure, just ask for them and I'll give them to you for free," he's going to spend the next year sorting through things and it will probably cost him tens of thousands of dollars. On the other hand, if he raises the bar a bit so only the people that are really interested take him up on it, he can probably close his doors faster. Just sayin'.

[Brian Elfert]

It is unlikely the doctor would deal with medical record disposal personally. They probably had at least one staff person working with them who would likely deal with this. I bet there are companies the doctor could hire to deal with parsing out the records. I'm sure the company could do okay at $35 per file and 25 cents a page.

[Brian Elfert]

One of the big medical systems locally sent everyone's paper records to India to be put into their new electronic system. I don't know how it made sense to have someone in the USA scan in people's medical records and then send the data to India for transcription. Why not just do the work locally and skip the step of doing the scanning? (They only went back a few years.)

As long as my Social Security number isn't on those pages I guess there is nothing on my medical records that I would care if someone in India saw.

[William Payer]

Mike,

I can access all my test results on line through Beaumont's portal. (need to have a participating Beaumont doctor). Its great in that I can access and print any test results, or see how any one particular test varied over time. Haven't gotten to the thumb drive option yet, but I can see where it could be very important and helpful in emergency situations.

[Jason Roehl]

The 4th Amendment applies to being free from unreasonable search and seizures by government action--I don't think I see any government action here, nor do I understand the relationship to search and seizure.

Think about this: If I commission a woodworker to build me a custom set of cabinets, does that mean that I have the right to demand that he turns over all his paperwork and plans when he's done? The answers is "of course not." I'm not sure I see it any differently in the GP context. As for "he should do it for free," I see another side there too. If he's retiring, figure he has 50 years worth of medical records on thousands of patients. If he says "sure, just ask for them and I'll give them to you for free," he's going to spend the next year sorting through things and it will probably cost him tens of thousands of dollars. On the other hand, if he raises the bar a bit so only the people that are really interested take him up on it, he can probably close his doors faster. Just sayin'.

You haven't read the 4th amendment recently, have you? It doesn't say specifically that being secure in one's person and effects is only a right to security against the government. If a doctor is holding records about my treatment, condition and/or well-being then I can't very well oversee their security now, can I?

There's a big difference between records on an item (and, yes, I'd probably want a copy of specifications...) and records on a person which can be used if the info falls into the wrong hands to deny that person a loan or insurance or whatever else.