Patient access to electronic records inconsistent

EHR adoption is increasingly widespread, but many HIPAA-covered health organizations make it difficult for patients to access their medical records electronically, according to the June issue of the Atlantic Information Services’ Report on Patient Privacy (RPP).

RPP examined the websites of several prominent health systems and found that some impose fees for copies and apply limits on what they will provide that do not appear to be in line with regulations. Overall, access requirements and regulation requirements are inconsistent across medical centers.  

In its review, RPP discovered that most entities require patients to go through a number of steps before protected health information is released. Some have different procedures for when the patients are requesting the record to be sent to themselves, versus when it is sent somewhere else, which is technically an authorization; some use a single form for both purposes, according to RPP.

“Most places don’t have electronic portals. They don’t email us securely. They put all these obstacles in the way of us getting our own data. It’s just terrible, awful,” said Deborah Peel, a psychiatrist and founder of the advocacy group Patient Privacy Rights, who reviewed some of the entities’ policies for records access at RPP’s request.

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