title: Copy fees and patients' rights to obtain a copy of their medical records: from law to reality.
abstract: Patients have a legal right under HIPAA to a copy of their medical records. Personal life-long medical records rely on patients' ability to exercise this right inexpensively and in a timely manner. We surveyed 73 hospitals across the US, with a geographic concentration around Boston, to determine their policies about fees for copying medical records and the expected time it takes to fulfill such requests. Fees range very widely, from $2-55 for short records of 15 pages to $15-585 for long ones of 500 pages. Times also range widely, from 1-30 days (or longer for off-site records). A few institutions provide records for free and even fewer make them accessible on-line. We argue that electronic records will help solve the problem of giving patients access to their own records, will do so inexpensively and in a format more likely to be useful than paper.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Political Science, University of Rome, La Sapienza, Itatly.
authors.forename: Gianluigi
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fioriglio
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Szolovits
mesh_terms: D003219:Confidentiality / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D003308:Copying Processes / Q000191:economics*; D003625:Data Collection; D005249:Fees and Charges / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D020408:Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D008500:Medical Records Department, Hospital; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized; D033283:Patient Access to Records / Q000191:economics* / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D013997:Time Factors; D014481:United States