This Form Is Used To Request Copies Of Medical Records: Fill & Download for Free

One night I got a call from my wife telling me she had been in a car accident and that the ambulance was going to take her to Kaiser.I raced out the door and when I walked into the ER, there she was sitting in a wheelchair in the waiting room, not in a bed. Even worse, she didn’t have a c-collar on and was screaming and crying because her neck and back hurt so bad.I walked up to the counter to find out what the hell was going on and was told that they were very busy and she wasn’t critical enough be given a bed. I asked who took off her collar (I know for a fact that one had been put on her by the paramedics) and what they saw on the x-rays that gave the right to take her collar off??She said “the triage nurse thinks she’s fine and that she didn’t hurt her neck so it was removed.”!!!! WTF???? How dare she make a decision like that?? She is not a doctor, my wife had been in a head on collision, there had been no x-rays done to rule out any injury, at the very minimum she would have severe whiplash, and that damn collar should have been left on!!!I walked back to the waiting room, turned her wheelchair around, and went straight to the car with her. No AMA form, nothing, just out the door and never looked back.I took her to a real ER and the first thing they did was put a collar back on her and send her down immediately for a CT. Guess what? The CT showed that she had herniated a disc at the C-3 C-4 vertebrae and needed immediate surgery!!Since then, she has had 2 additional surgeries and on the last one had her neck fused.They had the gall to send us a bill for an exam, IV, pain meds, use of a bed and on and on for a total of almost $5000!! All they did was sit her in a wheelchair and remove her collar and they wanted $5000??I sent it back with my attorney's attached and a very long letter explaining exactly what had not been done and exactly how much we would be suing their hospital and that triage nurse for.When he requested copies of her medical records, there were of course no records to produce because all that had been done was her blood pressure, temp and heart rate. Nothing else, not one damn thing.Yes, we won the lawsuit.

Consent forms are certainly maintained as part of a patient's medical record. If you were to just go and request a copy of your medical records, however, often you may only be provided with only the items that most people would want in that circumstance (lab results, progress notes, medication summaries, operation reports). This is not an attempt to conceal anything from you. Medical records are long and contain quite a few items that most patients would find to be extraneous. (do you need 18 copies of your facesheet with your insurance information? Nah.). You may have to simply specifically request copies of the consents.Prior to surgery you signed a (likely) generic consent form modified only by the planned procedure name. My hospital utilizes the same generic consent form for anything ranging from a quick skin biopsy to major abdominal or spine surgery. Most consent forms include discussion of generic surgery risks including bleeding, infection, injury to other organs, need for additional procedures, risk of anesthesia etc. They may also discuss presence of students, use of video or photography, risks of blood transfusion, possibility of death. If a foreign object will be implanted this will probably also be discussed. Legally, you are required to be provided with enough information for a "reasonable" person to make an informed decision. For example, while there is a incredibly remote possibility that a meteor could crash into the operating room and kill you, this is not required to be discussed on the consent because it is utterly unexpected and a reasonable person would not need to hear that risk prior to making a decision.

In the USA - when you have a baby the hospital gives the birth mom a keepsake birth certificate (typically with footprints); however, this certificate is not a legal document. This keepsake document belongs to the birth mother to do with as she pleases.In the USA - following the hospital birth the parents will need to fill out a birth certificate form to register the infant’s birth. Your parents will subsequently obtain a certified copy of the legal birth certificate for their newborn baby.The parents will use the official certified copy of the infant’s birth certificate throughout the life of their child to add the child to their insurance policy, for taxes (tax form 18415), to enroll the child in school, to obtain travel documents and passports, etc…. If the official certified copy of the birth certificate is misplaced (amazing how often this happens) odds are your parent had to pay to get yet another certified copy of the birth certificate prior to enrolling you in school. (Side note your mom also most likely also had to get copies of all of your childhood vaccination records to enroll you in school). All of these various documents have been diligently obtained and securely stored by your mom and they are her property. I can think of more than one situation where a parent might still need a certified copy of her child’s birth certificate after the child was an adult.Once a baby grows up he/she can purchase his/her own official certified copy of his/her birth certificate by contacting the birth certificate registrar at the Vital Statistics office in the county where they were born. No parent signature is required to obtain the certificate. The official certified copy of the birth certificate will typically arrive by mail approximately 14 days after the county birth registrar receives the request. You can order as many copies as you would like.I am emphasizing this because many people don’t understand this - do not contact your birth hospital to obtain an official certified copy of your birth certificate as this document is not a part of your medical record and the certified copies of the birth certificate aren’t issued or maintained by the hospital. To obtain an official certified copy of your birth certificate contact the birth registrars in the Vital Statistics Office in the county where you were born. The contact info will be readily available online. Cost for a certified copy of a birth certificate varies by county typically it is somewhere between $15 and $25.Adding this 3/18/2021 - This article does an excellent job of explaining that the actual certificate of live birth (aka Birth Certificate) is legally owned and maintained by Vital Statistics. I am not recommending that you use Vitalcheck or any other online service to obtain a birth certificate. You can obtain an official certified copy of a birth certificate for minimal expense by following the bolded instructions above.Who Owns a Birth Certificate? | Vital Records OwnershipWho owns a birth certificate? Do the parents of a new baby own it? Do you own your birth certificate when you turn 18? Click here to learn more.https://blog.vitalchek.com/vitalchek-blogs/who-owns-a-birth-certificate/