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)
List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message.
mailto:[log in to unmask]
|