Link, Gary M. wrote:
>>> Is there any reason to keep medical records in hard copy form rather then electronic if they are all closed?
> 
> A friend of mine practice oriental medicine and must keep medical records for 6 years.  She is leaving the country (for good) and it would be a whole lot cheaper for her to carry/store a few CDs rather then 6-7 banker boxes.
> 
> Any thoughts?
> 
> Teresa Werner,
> RIM Consultant
> 775-338-1342
> <<
> 
> Here are some thoughts:
> 
> What is oriental medicine and is it considered a real medical practice and are patient files covered by HIPAA and CMS related regs and state laws for medical files?
> 
> What state does she operate in? Some states have a state laws that specifies a retention longer than six years. PA has a requirement for seven years, and if you close your practice 

you have to notify the state department of 
Health where your records are stored (28 PA 
115.23).
> 
> When is she leaving and does she have time to arrange or contract out an imaging operation to scan the files and perform the necessary QA/QC and so on and so on ...?
> 
> Does she need to take the files with her or can they stay in the US?
> 
> If she is leaving "for good" what US laws does she really need to worry about? I doubt she would be extradited back to the US for failure to retain a medical file for the full 

retention period. Can she not simply give the 
files to the patients?

I managed a primary care M.D.'s medical 
practice in the late 1980s. In two years, I 
had to supervise moving the practice from one 
state to another and then, about 18 months 
later, closing the practice for good.

Before moving the practice and then, before 
closing the practice permanently, I paid for 
several advertisements -- never in the 
classified section -- in the local newspaper 
announcing the forthcoming close of the 
practice, that patients needed to notify us 
as soon as possible to which physician they 
wanted their records sent, and, if they 
wanted to pick up their records (some did), 
they had to call the office and make such 
arrangements before x date. We also announced 
this to each patient who came in to the 
office during these intervals. Even after all 
this, the doctor still had several boxes of 
records to store -- and some patients who 
contacted him after the closure were upset 
that the doctor couldn't drop everything, 
crawl into a mass of stored personal property 
and expedite the medical records ASAP.

In some cases, as we were in rural areas both 
times, I had to meet patients at pre-arranged 
locations to hand over their records. 
(Practice locations were in rural 
southwestern Georgia and rural northwestern 
Alabama.)

Elizabeth Whitaker
M.A., History (2006) & some archival experience
Alexandria, VA (present location)

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