Where are permanent medical records kept?
There is no such thing as one Permanent Medical Record, which is why they gave you a copy of the MRI. If you go to that hospital the doc will have access to it there, but your regular dr will only see it if you take it to her. This is why the proper answer to the question is: with you. You should always get copies of your records when you switch drs or move or something. They may charge you for it, but under HIIPA they have to give it to you. On the other hand, there is a huge health insurance database that has a record of all procedures you’ve been through, or at least every one that insurance has paid for. This is why it can be a good idea to pay for some things out of pocket if you ever expect to have to be covered by private insurance.
There were movements toward such a centralized insurance database until HIPAA quashed it. There is no centralized medical record system, nor do most of us think that there ever will be, nor should be. Record transfer can be accomplished via hand-carrying by the patient (the most foolproof in several ways), mail or electronic transfer. However, the phrase ‘permanent medical record’ has some meaning. Once medical records are generated, they (or at least the part of them that represents ‘information’) are in some legal sense the property of the patient. For example, the film and silver emulsion that your MRI is printed on doesn’t belong to you, but the pixels of the image do. Once the records are generated, there are very specific Federal laws as to how they can be handled, how they must be stored, for what period of time they must not be destroyed, etc. The laws detailing to whom and in what manner they may be disclosed were actually simplified by HIPAA – they are now only proto-Byzantin
I think OmniWise is referring to the Medical Information Bureau, commonly referred to as MIB. MIB is typically used by insurance companies to share informational codes about consumers and their health history. When an insurance company is underwriting a new policy, they will have an applicant answer questions about their medical history and can use MIB to verify information. Although MIB isn’t like a “permanent medical record” it will have flags of anything an insurance company paid on – IF that insurance company uses MIB. Not all do. Your MIB file is available at any time for your own review. Here are some additional links: MIB About Us Article on “mysterious” MIB revealed Article by Legal Match explaining MIB further Sorry this is a bit off-topic, but
The MIB isn’t a complete medical record unless you’ve filed an insurance claim for each and every lab test, procedure, or interaction you’ve ever had with the healthcare system and that company files with the MIB. As the industry consolidates into fewer and fewer payers, MIB will get more and more information. If you work for a company with a self-insured plan, meaning that your employer funds and pays for claims itself and only uses an administrator, it probably won’t use the MIB. As an RN, I can tell you that your medical record at a particular facility belongs to you, but the paper/microfilm/media it’s stored/printed on belongs to the facility in which it’s kept. You have the right to see your record, but the hospital or doctor’s office also has the right to charge you a fee for copying it. HIPAA has helped some with privacy, but it’s far from perfect. Just last week a world-class, very famous health care facility in Minnesota (four letters, starts with ‘M’ and ends with ‘O’), where
I worked at a large hospital that specialized in pediatrics. For three years we kept old records in the basement. After that they were sent to an off hospital storage facility (just a normal rented storage shed). After 5 or 7 years, I forget which, the records are destroyed. At each stage the records become more disorganized, and our chance of finding a record becomes less possible. It’s an amazingly incompetent way of doing things, especially considering today’s technology. We often had 18 year olds getting ready for college stop by wanted shot records from their childhood when it had been 10 years since we had seen them. Most were shocked we didn’t have their records. And with hippa, things have gotten even worse.
