You can ask the hospital or physician to waive or discount the fees. You can ask to review your record – there is no fee for you to review your record. During this process, under HIPAA, you can also ask to have someone at the doctor’s office or the hospital to explain the information and/or answer your questions. If you have reviewed your record and believe there are only a few documents that you need, you can ask to have only those pages copied. If these options do not work for you, and you need to pay the fee, you can submit the payment to your insurance company. It is unlikely that they will pay for the copying, but if you are able to make an argument that obtaining the information was necessary to your medical care and may even help you get better and more coordinated care (which it will), your health plan may make an exception.

Lastly, if you are part of a health savings plan, you can submit the cost of medical record copying as a legitimate healthcare expense that should be exempt from your taxable income. And, if you are not part of a healthcare savings plan, you can submit the charges as an expense on your income tax for the year. This expense could possibly decrease your tax liability or increase the amount you receive back from the IRS.

Pennsylvania’s “reasonable rates” for medical record copying, 2008:

• $1.28 - Amount charged per page for pages 1-20
• $.95 - Amount charged per page for pages 21-60
• $.32 - Amount charged per page for pages 61-end
• $1.88 - Amount charged per page for microfilm copies
• $24.08 - Flat fee for production of records to support any claim under Social Security
• $19.00 - Flat fee for supplying records requestedby a district attorney
• $19.00 - Search and retrieval of records