Principles of Law Regarding Charges for Copies of Medical Records

  • If a physician charges for copies, a requestor of medical records must pay for those copies
  • Payment may be required by the physician prior to the records being furnished
  • Limitations on charges for records requested in order to make or complete an application for a disability benefits program are different from program to program and are not covered by the limitations set forth below
  • The statutory charges now will be updated annually in accordance with the medical component of the consumer price index and will have an effective date of July 1 of each year
  • Medical Records are the property of the physician in custody or control of the records
  • A physician must provide copies of a patient's records to the patient or to a physician of the patient's choice, upon written request, within a reasonable period of time, unless providing the records to the patient would be detrimental to the patient
  • The Office of Budget and Planning is responsible for calculating an annual inflation adjustment to these costs, effective July 1 of each year.

Review Rate Sheet from the Georgia Office of Planning and Budget

Allowable Charges (effective 07/01/08):

Administrative Costs
e.g., search, retrieval and other labor costs)

$24.86
No charge allowed for patients seeking records under HIPAA.
Effective April 14, 2003 (HIPAA Privacy Regulations)

A charge for Certifying the Copies of the patient's record

Up to $9.32 per record

Cost of Postage

Actual Costs

Copying charges per page:

First 20 pages of patient's record

Up to $.93 per page

Pages 21 through 100 of record

Up to $.80 per page

Per page for over 100 pages

Up to $.63 per page

Reproduction of non-paper forms of Records
(e.g., radiology films, fetal monitoring strips, etc.)

Full reasonable costs