Your Legal Right to Your Records
Under both federal and Florida law, you have a legal right to access your own medical records. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act provides a federal baseline that gives patients the right to obtain copies of their medical records from any covered healthcare provider. Florida law provides additional protections that in some cases exceed the federal requirements. Understanding how to exercise this right effectively is important for anyone managing their healthcare and is essential for anyone considering a medical malpractice claim.
Your right to access your records includes hospital records, physician office notes, laboratory results, imaging studies and reports, surgical and procedure reports, nursing notes, medication records, anesthesia records, pathology reports, and any other documentation maintained as part of your medical record. You are entitled to a complete copy of your record, not a summary or selected portions chosen by the provider.
How to Request Your Records
To request your medical records in Florida, submit a written request to the healthcare provider or facility's medical records department. Your request should include your full legal name and date of birth, the specific records you are requesting or a statement that you want your complete record, the dates of treatment covered by your request, the format in which you want the records provided such as paper copies or electronic format, and your signature authorizing the release.
Florida law requires providers to furnish copies of medical records within a reasonable time, which is generally interpreted as 30 days from the date of the request. If the provider needs additional time, they must notify you of the delay and provide the records within an additional 30 days. Unreasonable delays in providing records are a violation of both federal HIPAA regulations and Florida law.
Costs and Fees
Florida law limits the fees that healthcare providers can charge for copies of medical records. The provider may charge a reasonable fee for the cost of copying and mailing the records, but they cannot charge fees that are so high as to effectively deny access. Under current Florida statute, providers may charge up to one dollar per page for the first 25 pages and 25 cents per page thereafter. For records provided in electronic format, the charges are generally lower. Providers may not charge a fee for searching for or retrieving the records themselves, only for the cost of copying.
If you are requesting records in connection with a medical malpractice claim, your attorney will typically handle the records request process and advance the copying costs. This is part of the case expenses that are recovered from the settlement or verdict if the case is successful.
What If the Provider Refuses or Delays?
Healthcare providers occasionally resist records requests, particularly when they suspect the records are being obtained in connection with a potential malpractice claim. Some providers delay responses, claim records are unavailable, or provide incomplete records. These tactics are improper and potentially unlawful.
If a provider refuses to provide your records or unreasonably delays the response, you have several options. You can file a complaint with the Florida Department of Health, which has authority to investigate and discipline providers who violate patient records access requirements. You can file a complaint with the federal Office for Civil Rights, which enforces HIPAA. And if your records request is part of a pending or anticipated legal claim, your attorney can subpoena the records through formal legal process, which compels production and creates consequences for non-compliance.
Why Your Records Matter
Your medical records are the primary evidence in any medical malpractice case. They document what symptoms you reported, what examinations were performed, what tests were ordered and what results were obtained, what diagnoses were made, what treatments were prescribed, and what instructions you were given. They also document what was not done, which is often equally important. A record that shows no follow-up was ordered for an abnormal test result, no imaging was performed for a complaint of chest pain, or no specialist referral was made for a concerning finding provides evidence of potential negligence.
Obtaining your records promptly is important because providers are required to maintain medical records for specific periods, but not indefinitely. In Florida, physicians must maintain adult patient records for at least five years from the date of the last patient contact, and hospitals must maintain records for at least seven years. After these retention periods expire, records may be destroyed. If you are considering a malpractice claim, obtaining your records before the retention period expires is essential.
Records and Your Malpractice Case
If you are considering a medical malpractice claim, your attorney will request your complete medical records from every provider and facility involved in your care. These records are then reviewed by a qualified medical expert who evaluates whether the standard of care was met. The thoroughness and accuracy of the medical record directly affects the expert's ability to render a reliable opinion, which in turn affects whether the case can proceed under Florida's pre-suit requirements.
Our Tampa medical malpractice attorneys handle the entire records gathering and review process as part of our free case evaluation. If you believe you may have been harmed by medical negligence, contact us to begin the process of obtaining and evaluating your medical records at no cost to you.
Protecting Your Records for the Future
Even if you are not currently considering a malpractice claim, maintaining personal copies of your medical records is a prudent practice. Records from significant medical events, hospitalizations, surgeries, and specialist consultations should be requested and stored in a secure location. This protects you against the possibility that records may be lost, destroyed after the retention period expires, or become unavailable if a practice closes or a provider retires. Having your own copies also ensures that you can provide complete and accurate medical history to new providers, which improves the quality of your ongoing care and reduces the risk of errors caused by incomplete information.
If you suspect that a medical provider may have altered, destroyed, or failed to maintain records that are relevant to a potential claim, contact a medical malpractice attorney immediately. Spoliation of evidence, the destruction or alteration of records that a party knows or should know are relevant to pending or anticipated litigation, carries serious legal consequences and can result in adverse inferences at trial.