Not A Part Of Medical Record: Fill & Download for Free

In his brilliant documentary Sicko (2007) - IMDb, Michael Moore documents several cases where insured individuals were diagnosed with expensive to treat conditions.This isn’t about not paying normal claims. It’s about not getting insurance when you need it. In most cases it’s not “not paying” but “not giving you permission to have a recommended procedure”.As Wikipedia summarizes it “Former employees of insurance companies describe cost-cutting initiatives that give bonuses to insurance company physicians and others to find reasons for the company to avoid meeting the cost of medically necessary treatments for policy holders, and thus increase company profitability.”One common method used in the past (before the ACA outlawed it) was to retroactively deny coverage on the basis that the condition being treated was “pre-existing”. They would go through years worth of medical records to find any indication that the patient was suffering from a symptom that may have indicated they had the disease they were seeking treatment for.And it’s often listed as the #1 reason why doctors move from the United States. Many Canadian doctors who go to the U.S. return when they find out that just about every medical procedure they want to order has to be approved by the insurance company first. If you read some of the responses on Quora, this often takes up a disproportionate part of a physician’s time.

Well here’s the story. A few weeks before Covid-19 sprang up in Wuhan there was a Military games thing there. A bunch of Americans went and some of them had this mysterious flu.So fast forward to the Chinese trying to figure out where Covid-19 came from, they asked the US to forward medical records for those soldiers, the US refused.Analysing this: China is thorough. They know that it’s very likely it came from the wildlife part of a Wuhan market, but they needed to discount all the other possibilities. The US refusal got them pissed that they couldn’t discount that possibility and some Chinese officials theorised about that. Which is where the rumour came from.And, btw, it’ll persist until the US comes clean with medical records for those soldiers in Wuhan at the time. Rightly so IMHO. The time to play silly little games is when there’s not a global pandemic, which the US doesn’t seem to understand.So to say it again. When the US coughs up the medical records the claims that Covid-19 started in the US will stop. Ball’s in their court.

The actual medical record, whether in paper or electronic form, is owned by the physician and medical office.However, the information contained in the medical record is property of the patient.You do not have the right to physically take the paper chart or remove the record in some other way. You are entitled to a copy of your medical records.This is done in the front of the office. You sign a release to get a copy of your records and these are provided to you. Legally, offices are allowed to require a reasonable fee for the expense of making this copy. It’s usually less than $25.I will often turn my computer around to show my patients various lab results or results of other tests.I do not believe a patient would have the right to look over my shoulder and read as I am generating the note. None of my patients has ever asked to do this.Once I sign the note, it becomes a part of the legal medical record and the patient can request it.