Special
Medical Record Information for our
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
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, 2010
|
Search, Retrieval, and Other Direct Administrative Costs |
Up to |
$25.88 |
|
Certification Fee |
Up to per record |
$9.70 |
|
Copying Costs for Records in Paper Form |
Per page for pages 1-20 |
$0.97 |
|
|
Per page for pages 21 - 100 |
$0.83 |
|
|
Per page for pages over 100 |
$0.66 |
Notes
Per the Georgia State Board of Workers’ Compensation PROCEDURE MANUAL effective
July 1, 2009: 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
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.