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Charge To Transfer Medical Records

CAA_Beat

CAA_Beat

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I don't know if any of you are aware of this or not.

Earlier this week I called the medical office of my current Dr. to have them transfer my records to another office. They said they would send a release form, ok great all is good.

Well the form comes along with a cover letter explaining that the following charges will apply.

$22.95 Processing Fee

additional .76 a page

$5 to fax or mail to the new office.

I was shocked and before I called up to berate them, we did some research. It appears congress passed a law in December that allowed them medical practices/doctors to charge this fee to it's patients. Went into affect in 2014.

I don't know how many pages my records are, but I know it's more than one or two. I think it's outrageous. I plan on contacting the new Dr's office, to see what they suggest, or if they will cover part of the cost, which might be a long shot.

Interested to see if anyone has heard of this.
 
Never heard that. That really sucks. Is it possible to just get your medical records from your current Dr and take them to your new Dr? In the Navy we were able to check our records out, not sure what it's like in the real world.
 
We've got to pay for Obamacare some way. Just wait, it will only get better!!!
 
Yup they sure did. Its bullsh!t in my opinion.

Here is a list of what states can charge.
http://patients.about.com/gi/o.htm?...ile.com/index.php/support/state_copy_charges/

The best part of course is that they cannot deny you this information if you cannot afford it. You must provide that in writing to the service provider. I have also heard that you can get around this by requesting copies after each visit. This way there is nothing to charge you for compiling the data. You will have it after each visit.
 
JPR1959 said:
We've got to pay for Obamacare some way. Just wait, it will only get better!!!
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Probably a valid point.


Ok. I don't want this to go political. Bit I will just say this. UVAWahoo is in the "medical field" I don't know how specific he would like me to be.

But he said during our round on Sunday that
"The devil is in the details" speaking about Obama Care. This might be an indication of what he meant.
 
Yep, my wife went through the same thing recently when she switched doctors because she started working for one of our local hospitals and he doctor was through another network. Over $80 to transfer her records. She works for a pediatricians office and that is standard, there are fees for transferring records. Kinda dumb if you ask me too
 
How long do you think it would take a person to get the entire file copied/faxed over to the other office? You said in the OP it is a rather larger file. Just genuinely curious.
 
I know some doctors have gone to electronic medical records, wonder what they charge for sending those files via email.
 
dcbrad said:
How long do you think it would take a person to get the entire file copied/faxed over to the other office? You said in the OP it is a rather larger file. Just genuinely curious.
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I would then ask these two questions as a follow up.
Shouldnt that be part of the fees paid during my visit? Since they are compiling the data at that time.
And if I supply my own thumb drive, why is their still a fee? (for the copying and pasting I was told)(which took all of 11 minutes).
 
Can you just go there and pick up your records for free? My step mom was just in ICU at a hospital 3.5 hours from her home. When she checked out, they gave her some forms and a CD with all her records.
 
Only reason I know about that is because we changed my son's pediatrician earlier this year. Luckily we stayed within the same umbrella of doctor's and all of the paperwork is logged on their internal system. Worked in our favor, at least this time.
 
JB said:
I would then ask these two questions as a follow up.
Shouldnt that be part of the fees paid during my visit? Since they are compiling the data at that time.
And if I supply my own thumb drive, why is their still a fee? (for the copying and pasting I was told)(which took all of 11 minutes).
Click to expand...

If it is a paper file, I can understand there being a fee, it is probably more expensive than it needs to be, but nonetheless I can understand it. But with some EMS, there is cloud software where patients can log in with a key code and view their files. They can do whatever they please with them.

As a person who owns an office, I don't see how there couldn't be a fee, but I charge a per page fee ($0.21). It is usually patients who want hard copies of files that are already available to them electronically. (FWIW, usually 3 of my visit notes can fit on one page).

I am also sure these fee are in direct correlation to insurance reimbursement continually going down, while the cost to have an office remain open is systematically going up.
 
JB said:
I would then ask these two questions as a follow up.
Shouldnt that be part of the fees paid during my visit? Since they are compiling the data at that time.
And if I supply my own thumb drive, why is their still a fee? (for the copying and pasting I was told)(which took all of 11 minutes).
Click to expand...

The fees you pay during a visit do not include this. You're given a CPT (or CPTs) for services rendered. The CPT codes are submitted to an insurance company and they reimburse based off of these CPT codes. I can guarantee you there are no CPT codes for sending medical records. It's extra labor and you have to pay for it. Typically most practices and hospitals have a fee for ROI (release of information) and need to be able to support that department (or in a practice's case a person) through some sort of revenue generation.
 
dcbrad said:
If it is a paper file, I can understand there being a fee, it is probably more expensive than it needs to be, but nonetheless I can understand it. But with some EMS, there is cloud software where patients can log in with a key code and view their files. They can do whatever they please with them.

As a person who owns an office, I don't see how there couldn't be a fee, but I charge a per page fee ($0.21). It is usually patients who want hard copies of files that are already available to them electronically. (FWIW, usually 3 of my visit notes can fit on one page).

I am also sure these fee are in direct correlation to insurance reimbursement continually going down, while the cost to have an office remain open is systematically going up.
Click to expand...

Ballsohard said:
The fees you pay during a visit do not include this. You're given a CPT (or CPTs) for services rendered. The CPT codes are submitted to an insurance company and they reimburse based off of these CPT codes. I can guarantee you there are no CPT codes for sending medical records. It's extra labor and you have to pay for it. Typically most practices and hospitals have a fee for ROI (release of information) and need to be able to support that department (or in a practice's case a person) through some sort of revenue generation.
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This is where I struggle, because if requested at the end of a visit, I have never been to an office that has a charge for that. The compiling of the pages cannot be the reason for the fee, but since there is no charge for it at the end of the visit, that is the only reasoning one can come to.
 
JB said:
This is where I struggle, because if requested at the end of a visit, I have never been to an office that has a charge for that. The compiling of the pages cannot be the reason for the fee, but since there is no charge for it at the end of the visit, that is the only reasoning one can come to.
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The tl;dr version of it is, the more insurance companies nickel and dime on reimbursement, the more the patient will be nickel and dimed on their own responsibility; which in this case is a little silly because $30 won't make a dent in most practice or hospital's revenue streams.
 
My wife always gets copies after each visit and I think that is the right way to go. I don't like the practice of charging but these are not pro bona operations and time and materials needs to be accounted in these instances.
 
Another way for the health care industry to rape the working man.
 
NoLine said:
My wife always gets copies after each visit and I think that is the right way to go. I don't like the practice of charging but these are not pro bona operations and time and materials needs to be accounted in these instances.
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I absolutely agree. I have no problems with charges, if there was a consistent idea of what those are. It varies so much and of course the idea of "Cant afford it, no worries". Just make it a flat rate across the board and I dont think anybody has issue with it, or better yet, just give it to the patient after each visit and then none of it ever comes to be.
 
JB said:
I absolutely agree. I have no problems with charges, if there was a consistent idea of what those are. It varies so much and of course the idea of "Cant afford it, no worries". Just make it a flat rate across the board and I dont think anybody has issue with it, or better yet, just give it to the patient after each visit and then none of it ever comes to be.
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Agreed, a flat rate defined upfront avoids confusion and anger.
 
May be a long shot but did you ask if you can hand carry your records to the new place? That's what we do in the military when changing duty stations, I prefer it that way.
 
This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine tries to steal her medical records
 
JB said:
Yup they sure did. Its bullsh!t in my opinion.

Here is a list of what states can charge.
http://patients.about.com/gi/o.htm?...ile.com/index.php/support/state_copy_charges/

The best part of course is that they cannot deny you this information if you cannot afford it. You must provide that in writing to the service provider. I have also heard that you can get around this by requesting copies after each visit. This way there is nothing to charge you for compiling the data. You will have it after each visit.
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Yep...JB, that was pretty much what we said (my fiance shares the same practice) when we read the letter. you are right we could get them on each visit as others have said in this thread and that's what we may do going forward.

I'dHitThat said:
May be a long shot but did you ask if you can hand carry your records to the new place? That's what we do in the military when changing duty stations, I prefer it that way.
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That was gping to be one of my questions as well.

Since I posted this, I got a email from my Fiance. She called and spoke to our Dr's long time assistant. She said not to worry about it. She "will take care of it"

My current DR. who we've both have seen for about 10 years is leaving to start her own practice, we got her letter notifying us of that. That's what prompted the call to get the records. Her assistant is leaving with her, the new practice will open in about a month. I'm assuming she will arrange to transfer all her patients records with her (maybe at her cost or maybe she can do it since she's still in the practice). The assistant told us to just complete the authorization form and bring it by the office to her.

Still the larger issue remains. While I do agree the practice should be able to pass on some reasonable fee, I think leaving it open ended like this could catch a lot of people by surprise..like it did us.
As I said we've been seeing her for 10 years, and I usually see her at least 3 to 4 times a year for various matters, annual physical and other visits.
 
evand23mc said:
This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine tries to steal her medical records
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HA...I don't recall that one, and I thought I'd seen them all.
 
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