Older adults have cause to be careful about what’s in their medical records. Although definitive data aren’t available, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology estimates that nearly 1 in 10 people who access records online end up requesting that they be corrected for a variety of reasons.
In the worst-case scenario, an incorrect diagnosis, scan or lab result may have been inserted into a record, raising the possibility of inappropriate medical evaluation or treatment.
Omissions from medical records—allergies that aren’t noted, lab results that aren’t recorded, medications that aren’t listed—can be equally devastating.
In less dire scenarios, a patient’s name, address, phone number, or personal contacts may be incorrect, making it difficult to reach someone in the event of an emergency or causing a bill to be sent to the wrong location. Or, your family history may not be conveyed accurately. Or, you may not have received a service recorded in your record—for instance, a stress test—and want to contest the bill.
The law that guarantees your right to review your medical record, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, offers some recourse: If you think you’ve discovered an error in your medical record, you have the right to ask for a correction. (For more information about how to obtain your record, see my earlier column here.)
Start by asking your doctor or hospital if they have a form (either a paper or electronic version) you should use to submit a suggested change.
A simple error such as a wrong phone number can be corrected by drawing a thin line through the material and writing a suggested change in the margins or making an electronic note. A more complicated error such as incorrect description of your symptoms or a diagnosis that you’re contesting may require a brief statement from you explaining what material in the record is wrong, why and how it should be altered.
Physicians and hospitals are required to respond in writing within 60 days, with the possibility of a 30-day extension. (Some states set shorter deadlines.) But medical providers are not obligated to accept your request. If you receive a rejection, you have the right to add another statement contesting this decision to your medical record. You can also file a complaint with the government office that oversees HIPAA or a state agency that licenses physicians.
Devin O’Brien, senior counsel with The Doctors Company, the largest physician-owned medical malpractice firm in the U.S., notes that rejections can be warranted when facts or medical judgments are in question. An example might be a patient who wants a doctor’s notes about potentially excessive opioid use eliminated from the record. “The patient may say I don’t have a problem, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but the physician may think the patient has an issue,” O’Brien said.
Another example might be a patient who wants a diagnosis eliminated from a medical record, because it might compromise her ability to get insurance coverage. That wouldn’t be an acceptable reason for making a change, experts said.
For more information about correcting errors in medical records, see this guide to getting and using your medical record from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, this explainer from patient advocate Trisha Torrey, and these descriptions of your HIPAA rights from the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and the Center for Democracy & Technology.
