medical records

[arguchik]

fuckers. UWMC charges 69 cents per page for me to obtain a personal copy of my medical records. but, if they send the records to another health care provider, it's free--as a "professional courtesy." CT scans cost $8 per film, though they will burn a CD for free (not sure if i have to provide the blank CD or not). of course they're blaming it on HIPPA...

Comments

[rwx.livejournal.com]

it's easiest if you just get a doctor in another city to request a copy of your files and then mail it to you.

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

the doc i want to send the stuff to won't request it for me. i'm just going to request that the stuff be sent to them...but i'll price out the cost of getting my own copy too. it would be good to have.

[jennaxide.livejournal.com]

This pisses me off. I think most places charge to keep yer average health care schmuck on the street from asking too much.

Hell, the whole system pisses me off.

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

me too, sweetie. me too.

[rojonoir.livejournal.com]

fuckers.

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

that is one of my FAVORITE pictures of johnny cash. a friend of mine had a poster of that in his office, alongside a poster of miles davis very clearly saying "fuck you" or some facsimile thereof. i've always thought those two posters would make a nice trilogy with a poster another friend of mine has: keith richards (circa 1968?) passed out in a chair, probably freshly dosed with heroin.

[drjohn.livejournal.com]

8 bucks is about right for those big slabs of film and someone's time to dearchive and print a study. .



I am all about people being involved in their care, but some reasonable deterrent to needing as many document copiers as other staff combined seems prudent. FWIW, I have seen one dollar per page quoted.

I fully support your working the system, and I am part of that system.

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

i would agree, if it weren't for that whole "professional courtesy" thing. i can see charging to print out the films--i know those are expensive, and i don't really need that for my personal use anyway (except inasmuch as having them would make my medical records truly portable)--but why 69 cents per page for photocopying, but only if it's for me, not if it's for another doc? this ought to be like getting one's free annual credit report. legally...nominally...i have a right to access anything that's in my medical chart, but they make it cost prohibitive for me to actually obtain any of that stuff. (incidentally, i would prefer to get it in electronic form rather than as hard copies.)

i have a long family history that makes me highly cynical about medical bureaucracies. (ask me about my sister's death sometime.) i'm not cynical about the docs themselves--i take them as they come. most i like and trust, and some i don't, at about the same rate as for the general population. it's the conglomerations that frost my shorts (ha--that figure of speech is from my dad).

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

p.s. i would also be more than willing to take my file and photocopy it myself, but i'll bet they wouldn't allow that...