> I am having a BIG problem obtaining my medical records from my Dr.s.
> Either they want to charge a fee( $10.00 PER PAGE) or they tell me to
> have my new Dr. contact them and they will supply the records to the
> new Dr. as a curtesy. I did try that and the new Dr. only got a phone
> call, not the records.
While you are entitled to receive records, the doctors can charge you a fee for copying. $10 a page sounds like an unreasonable amount.
Write a letter to the doctor requesting that he send the entire record to the new doctor giving your permission to do so.
Another possibility is to make an appointment with the doctor who has your record or someone on his staff to go in and read it. Then you could make copies of important test results and save money.
Now, after I have a test I call the doctor's office and ask that a copy of the results be sent to me. This almost always works, although one doctor charges 75 cents a page. Since most test results are a page or two, I just tell them to send me a bill, which they never do because that's more work than just mailing out the silly test results. Frankly, I think the 75 cents is planned to discourage me from asking -- probably less because they don't want me to know than it is a pain in the butt to go to the copy machine, address an envelope, and mail it, especially when they have to retrieve it from the doctor's overcrowded desk or strange filing system.
But this is unusual. Most offices mail it right out.
Kate
Kate
-- Kate Murphy katemm@mindspring.com