The Big Medical Secret...  

Hi Twoey,

This is a common method which was followed by all the
medical professional. So one of the lawyer or physician would
request your medical record for the treatment purpose or court purpose,
and also as a individual person you can not have the rights to have the
medical records. So it is very simple to have the contacts with one
of any doctor and he may request your current files of medical reports
in order to have your ow records. Because this was one of the ethics
and have to follows by all the medical professional . So most of the
countries in the Europe would follows similar procedure, because they are
considering the individual medical record is a more important file.

Have a nice day.

The reason for this is that doctor and most medical staff write in a sort of code that is hard to understand and the jargin they use is not something the lay person should read. They really try to get you not to have any acsess to your file because of this. This was explained to me many years ago. I went ahead and got mine and there was little I had a problem understanding. Yes, my doctor would give them to me. Yes, I think you should get your record when you want them and you should be adviced much more tactfully than you have been as to why they are not reccomended to be seen by the lay person.

WOW! That is a little ridiculous when you put it this way.. Other health care people and LAWYERS well, that is a joke) can read your stuff but .. YOU cannot just see it, no no... what are you going to do?? Sue the doctor??''What is he afraid of?

I have simply asked my doctor, when I had a claim for insurance, if I could have a copy of my file to send along with my application and he printed it all out and handed it to me..
what different worlds we live in!!!

And, I have to admit, a few things in that history were a surprise and a couple gave me a good chuckle, but it's MY history..
If I have to spend years of my life in school learning the history of people around the world, HALLO.. should I not be able to read my own???

Unfortunately, this is common pratice. Thank our government. You can't know about yourself, God only knows what you might do with that information. As long as another professional asks for it, it's perfectly okay for them to see it. This is what our privacy laws have done for us.

I felt better knowing I was the only one getting my info. instead of doctors or lawyers that have a "signed" document.

If you have a fax machine they are a little happier about sending the paperwork to you. Goodluck.

I don't think it's a secret whatsoever, you could easily ask you doctor what he thinks and what you have when you consult him. I belong to a family of doctors and medical practitioners and it isn't a 'secret' for the medical records to be shown to the patient. It's that most of the scribbles there are only understood by the doctor himself.

Similarly, we do keep the original copy of the medical or laboratories done but we discourage people from taking the original copy because of the probability of them losing it. Further, it's the doctor's copy so as when you come back he'll have a reference of what happened to you and you won't need to tell him everything from the beginning. Though there are times when a company or due to some legalities, the doctors are asked to create a medical report, that's solely for the purpose that was needed by the company.

Anyhow, we do give copies if the patient wants it, but all in all, they wouldn't understand it anyhow.

I guess it's different though for psychological patients or psychiatric patients, I think the doctors won't really give you those because you may not understand or have a different understanding of what they scribbled there about you.

Here in Australia I was under the impression that medical records belonged to the patient but reading your post is making me think again and I may have to look into that. I know that you can have your records transferred from one doctor to another and there is talk that the medical board may have medical records available for viewing online in the very near future.

SOUNDS like a crock to me. I ask for mine here while back & got them w/out any problem at all. I think they were giving u the run around for some reason.

i would check that somehow-that doesn't sound right.
i had always heard you have the right to demand your records at anytime-HIPAA
should only pertain to asking for records of other people,not your own.

almost sounds like they're afraid you're going to sue them.

That's really strange, I've never had a problem requesting medical records for myself or my children. I have had to pay for them, the most I ever paid was $40 per child but, that was it.

I have no problem getting my records. My Doctor copies them and gives them to me right in front of me. He prefers that I have them and hand deliver them, he doesn't trust a fax, computers, or the mail. He doesn't want to be sued. He's known me since the 1980s. Now my eye dr., that is a different matter. I would need to produce fingerprints and prove who I was. He's worried about giving my folder to the wrong person and getting sued by the right one. The 1st Dr. is a simple country dr. The second one is part of a big corporation and my eye dr. there changes all the time. I could walk in and say I was anybody. The new laws make it so that people can be sued, so if they can't prove who the person they're giving the files to beyond a shadow of a doubt, they won't give them to someone. Drs., Lawyers, and Caseworkers in most states have their prints and likenesses on file. So do I, many times over.

Now I had a psychological done by the state once, and they refused to give it to me, so I went to an Independent Living Center and they fought for me to get it. But you could see where it had been cut and pasted, tempered with. So I requested the entire thing. The Psych who evaluated me and written some unprofessional things in it and she was trying to cover her butt. She had written stuff about my family that I hadn't told her based on years ago.They had told me that the test results might upset me if I didn't understand them. I have a learning disability that ranges from mild to one point that is severe. I end up in the mentally retarded stanine for some eye-to-hand coordination tests. I understood that and while I wasn't happy that I'm worse than my brother who is mentally disabled for eye-to-hand coordination, sometimes, it was a shock, but it explains why I hate puzzles and small motor tasks. The shock was momentary. The understanding was forever. I had taken the same classes as the Psychs to understand IQ and other tests (Psychs and Teachers are often in the same or similar classes for interpreting test information). So I argued that I have the education to understand it.

A friend of mine got her file and they had left out details. "Patient appears hysterical." She was angry because, "Patient had been just told she had terminal cancer with 0% possibility of remission."-That was NOT in her folder. So what to _______ would your reaction be? But that wasn't in the file.

When they don't want to give you something, it's A. They are afraid of being sued or B. They were unprofessional, but they will tell you C. That you might get upset at what you read. OK, you might get upset. But is it because they didn't tell you something? Did they write it unprofessionally? Did they leave out parts that would explain your behavior? I've experienced two and my friend has experienced a third of those.

I would ask them point-blank, what exactly is your problem with giving me my own files?