Special Medical Record Information for our Georgia Clients

Principles of Georgia Law Regarding Charges for Copies of Medical Records

§ If a physician charges for copies, a requestor of medical records must pay for those copies.

§ Payment may be required by the physician prior to the records being furnished.

§ Limitations on charges for records requested in order to make or complete an application for disability benefits program are different from program to program and are not covered by the limitations set forth below.

§ The statutory charges updated annually in accordance with the medical component of the consumer of price index and will have an effective July 1 of each year.

§ Medical Records are the property of the physician in custody or control of the records.

§ A physician must provide copies of patient’s records to the patient or to a physician of a patient’s chose, upon written request, within a reasonable period of time, unless providing the records to the patient would be detrimental to the patient.

Copying Charges
How much can I charge for medical records in Georgia?

The Georgia Office of Planning and Budget (OPB) pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 31-33-3, calculates an annual inflation adjustment for the costs related to medical record retrieval, certification and copying.

Effective July 1, 2008

Search, Retrieval, and Other Direct Administrative Costs	Up to	$24.86
Certification Fee	Up to per record	$9.32
Copying Costs for Records in Paper Form	Per page for pages 1-20	$0.93
	Per page for pages 21 - 100	$0.80
	Per page for pages over 100	$0.63

Notes

Per the Georgia State Board of Workers’ Compensation PROCEDURE MANUAL effective July 1, 2008:  The employee shall, upon the request of the employer/insurer, furnish copies of all medical records and reports in his or her possession within 30 days of the date of the request, the cost of which shall be charged to the employer/insurer according to the fee schedule.

The HIPAA Privacy Rule prohibits the charge for Search, Retrieval and Other Direct Administrative Costs from being assessed against the patient or the patient's personal representative who requests medical records. The HIPAA prohibition does not apply to requests by other persons.

The HIPAA Privacy Rule prohibits providers from charging to convert medical records into a form or format requested by the individual, if it is readily producible in such form or format, or into a readable hard copy form or other agreed upon form or format. However, if the individual wants a copy of a non-paper medical record, then a Georgia hospital may charge a reasonable, cost-based fee for copying the record, including the cost of supplies and copying labor.

Physicians and hospitals may charge the actual cost (i.e., postage) of mailing the requested records.

Physicians may charge for summaries of health records.

A physician or hospital may not assess copying costs in the case of a person seeking records for the purpose of applying for disability benefits coverage.