Florida Board of Medicine Delays Action on Medical Records Cost Increases

How much should you have to pay for a copy of your own medical records? Currently your doctor’s office can charge you $25.00 for the first 25 pages, and then 25 cents for each additional page. However the Florida Board of Medicine has been trying for some time to pass a new administrative rule that would increase the cost of medical records from physicians to $1.00 per page. This proposed rule would even apply to electronic records – so you could still be charged $1.00 per page for someone simply emailing you an electronic copy of your doctor’s records. As reported in Health News Florida, it seems the only groups that will benefit from records cost increase are the private copying companies.

Today the Board of Medicine met to consider the cost increase, and I was asked to testify about the conflict between the proposed rule and HIPAA’s direction that patients should only be charged for the actual cost of copying and postage. The Board, however, decided to table the proposed rule until October, and seemed to recognize that this cost increase would hurt patients and discourage them from getting their own medical records. Hopefully this means the Board will vote down this cost increase in October.