Medical Records Copying Charges

This web page lists the various state statutes that control the amount of money doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers can charge a patient for copies of their medical records, as well as records provided to the patient's attorney or law firm for use in personal injury cases. Note that under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) a covered entity can only charge "reasonable" cost-based fees for providing the medical records to patients. See 45 CFR 164.524(c). Arguably, fees that are not cost-based, even if permitted by a state statute, may be contrary to the HIPAA regulation and therefore preempted by this federal regulation. We update this page when we learn of new statutes, or revisions to statutes already posted; as such, there is no regular time point at which we do this. We cannot and do not represent that all statutes are up-to-date. One type of revision which is especially hard for us to keep track of has to do with costs changes allowed annually by a statute and based on some indexed inflation rate. Please always view the actual statute when there is a link available and/or check any "UPDATE" link which you may see for a particular state because these items may contain cost information that is more current than the synopsis text which appears on this blog page. If you are aware of additional statutes which should be posted on this blog page, please send the following to Chiso a link to the relevant statute in your state; and a concise summary of the costs aspect of that statute. NOTE: If your state's statute is not available online, or you cannot provide us with a precise URL link for the statute, please fax, text or mail this blog. You can also message our FacebookPage. Likewise, any clarifications, corrections, or updates regarding the statutes on this blog page should be submitted to Chiso . Please understand that the materials on this blog page are for general information purposes only, and must not be regarded as legal advice