High Cost of Medical Records Poses Barrier to Medical Malpractice Victims

Our advocacy on behalf of legislation to reduce the cost of patient access to medical information was recently featured in an article written by attorney Elizabeth A. Hanley, of The Hanley Law Firm, PLLC. Below is a reprint of her article:

Want to See Your Medical Records? Get Out Your Wallet

Patients may be charged hundreds, if not thousands of dollars by their medical provider for copies of their own medical records.  Taxpayers are also bearing this large cost when the attorney general or other state agencies have to pay exorbitant costs to medical providers to obtain copies of patient records relating to the state’s litigation on behalf of its citizens.

A bill requiring medical providers to pass on the savings in the reduced cost of producing information is before Washington lawmakers.  The bill has gained traction because the costs patients pay for their medical records have become so high in recent years that they create a barrier to equal access to justice; only those patients who can afford to pay for their medical records are able to use them in courts to assert their rights. Additionally, the public has become increasingly aware that new laws and the low costs of technology have led medical providers to transition to electronic records keeping, for which copies are cheaper to produce than hard copy records.

Current state law enables medical providers charge such large sums for providing patients their own information. According this chart (credit:Washington Association of Justice),Washington permits providers to charge some of the highest rates in the U.S.

It is not unusual for a patient to be charged upwards of $30.00 for simple documents like a written confirmation that they do not owe a physician or hospital any money. This cost is no different when the patient engages an attorney. For review of a medical malpractice case, the cost of records may range between $5 to $10,000.00.

When a colleague and friend of mine, Angela Macey-Cushman, and I testified in support of the bill to reduce the cost of patient access to medical information, lobbyists for hospitals and doctors opposed it. They testified that even where a hospital simply drags and drops information from its electronic files onto a $5 CD, the hospital should be permitted to charge for each page of information contained on the CD. These results in patients receiving along with a single CD containing their medical records, in one case, a bill for $14,000 which must be paid to the medical provider for giving the patient their treatment information. Legislators and other groups have requested proof of the purported high cost of transferring information borne by hospitals. These groups have declined to produce data showing the actual cost of gathering and producing medical information to their patients.

At present, the Washington Association for Justice and other organizations are speaking about the importance of the legislation to reduce the cost of patient access to medical care. Roger Leslie, Phd., J.D. has devoted substantial resources to gathering information to support the bill. Washington Representative David Sawyer sponsored the legislation. The legislative session is short and lawmakers have numerous bills before them. Given the increasing calls by the public for transparency and accountability of healthcare providers for costs involved with treatment, legislators should pass a bill reducing the cost of patient access to medical records and bills which enable them to assess the quality and cost of their own healthcare.