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apolonious t1_je14rp6 wrote

HIPAA is on your side! At least it should be: long story short, if you request your own records in electronic format from a healthcare provider that keeps them in electronic format, they can't charge you more than a reasonable expense.* Read more about the HITECH Act.

*I haven't looked at updates or anything in a few years but this was approximately true somewhat recently. I'm not giving legal advice here.

Edit: "reasonable expense" meaning something along the lines of $6 for a CD if they put the records on a CD. If they emailed them to you (or emailed you a link to download them) I'm not sure they can charge you at all; vague recollection is that they can only charge for the electronic medium.

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Birkin92 t1_je36dhi wrote

This. Tell them HIPPA and to pound dust. They're just inconvenienced and they charge you because they can't make money off releasing your records.

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apolonious t1_je3d51j wrote

lol so yeahhhhh and I am with you sentiment-wise but to OP I would suggest taking a non-confrontational tone (while also not caving to demands for more than a nominal charge for records). HIPAA is a facepalm kind of sorcery/science issue where healthcare people and legally literate people treat one another like witches. I have literally mailed medical offices highlighted copies of the HIPAA provisions showing that what they were demanding was illegal, and then received stubbornly ignorant (and flat wrong) ‘nuh-uh’ responses from lawyers hired by said medical offices. tl;dr You’ve got right (and the law) on your side (this is not legal advice) but if you talk too much about law you may bait them into flexing their legal ignorance in combination with their financial flexibility which is a mistake even lawyers sometimes make and regret.

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