What To Know As You Gather and Share Medical Records
At one point or another, everyone is likely to need a copy of their medical records. Perhaps you need to send information to your new doctor. Maybe you want to share your health information with caregivers. Suppose you are dealing with a complicated diagnostic or treatment process. In that case, you might want to share your records to help coordinate care across several practitioners or to ensure you don’t repeat any tests or procedures. While gathering and sharing your records can be a tedious process, applying a few tips can make it much easier.
Tip #1: You have a legal right to your health data
First, it’s important to know that under HIPAA, you have the legal right to request your medical records, and you can also authorize other individuals to request records on your behalf like a parent, legal guardian, patient advocate, or caregiver. You can also authorize one doctor to share your records with another doctor.
Moreover, a new regulation enacted in 2020, known as the information blocking rule, legally prohibits any action that interferes with, prevents, or materially discourages patient access, exchange, or use of electronic health information. This regulation is a big step towards helping more patients access their data digitally via patient portals.
So if you ever have trouble getting copies of your data from your doctors and hospitals, don’t give up, and don’t stop pushing. The only limit to your data is that the age of a particular set of records can affect the ability to obtain them—most doctors, hospitals, and labs are only legally required to keep adult medical records for at least six years, although this can vary by state.
Tip #2: Always start with your Patient Portals
When looking to share your medical records, you always want to start with the quick and no-cost approach. A patient portal is a secure online website that offers you free, convenient, 24-hour access to your personal health information. Using a secure username and password, you can view your medical history, including:
Recent doctor visits
Discharge summaries
Medications
Immunizations
Allergies
Lab results
Sometimes an individual doctor’s office has their own patient portal, while other times a hospital system has one patient portal used by all of their doctors. You also may have patient portals with your pharmacy or lab test providers (like Quest or LabCorp) where you can find additional medical data that may not show up in your doctors’ portals.
When logged into your patient profile, look for buttons or links to share or download your data. If given the option, choose to download as comprehensive information as possible such as the broadest date range of available data. Once you’ve downloaded your data, you can either print it out and bring to your appointment or you can fax it to your doctor, depending on your preference. Some patient portals, like MyChart, also give you the option to create a link that allows access to your records and can be shared via email or text.
Tip #3: Request any missing data directly from your doctor
After you have gone to each of your patient portals and gathered and reviewed your data, you may find some gaps. Maybe one of your doctors doesn’t use a patient portal. Maybe you have older data that isn’t available online. Maybe you can’t access detailed information in your patient portals, like the actual images from an X-ray.
If you need to gather additional information, you can request this data directly from your doctor via a HIPAA records release form. As each doctor’s office has its own process, you should start by calling or emailing their office to find out how to request records within their office. Most doctor’s offices have their own unique release form, but if they don’t, you can send them a letter with the following information included:
Your name, date of birth, and record number or the same information of the person whose medical record you're requesting on their behalf
The doctor or clinic within the practice you need information from
The range of dates you would like information from
The type of information you would like to see on the record
Where the records should be sent
The amount of time you permit to share the records
If there's a certain date you would like the records by
Your signature, the date you signed the form, and your relationship to the person (if it is not you)
Tip #4: Be prepared to wait for hard copy data
It is always preferred to try to gather your medical data from a patient portal because 1) it’s free, and 2) it’s immediate. If you request your data from your doctor directly, you should be aware that:
According to federal law, it could take up to 30 days for your doctor to share your health record. If they need more than 30 days, they must give you a reason for the delay and a new delivery date up to a month later.
According to federal law, your doctor may charge a reasonable fee for making or mailing a copy of your health record. It’s important, therefore, to ask your doctor how much it will cost to get your record, as depending on how expansive your records are – the costs could add up.
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