Two plaintiffs are suing two Washington, DC, hospitals for what they say are excessive and illegal charges for providing copies of their electronic medical records (EMRs).
The lawsuit accuses MedStar Georgetown University Hospital and George Washington University Hospital of violating local consumer protection laws, according to the Washington Business Journal. The patients say the hospitals tried to charge them hundreds, and in at least one case, thousands of dollars for copies of the EMRs. (The full story is available at http://tinyurl.com/p3ge39j.)
The potential liability could increase if the court grants class-action status, which the plaintiffs are seeking on behalf of all patients who obtained medical records from the hospitals.
The plaintiffs sought medical records from MedStar Georgetown, and a third-party contractor responded with bills for $1,168 and $1,559, according to the lawsuit. The contractor explained that the charges were based on a base fee of $22.88, plus 76 cents per-page copying fees, and a shipping fee of $16.38. The invoices explained that the contractor provides only paper copies of the EMR, rather than transferring it electronically or making a CD.
When the plaintiffs complained, MedStar Georgetown directed them to an online portal for electronic copies of records. However, that portal requires the patient to pay per-page fees and a membership fee to store the records electronically, the lawsuit claims.
The plaintiffs received their records electronically, but one was charged the 76 cents per page for a paper copy, plus other fees, for a total of $2,481. The other plaintiff was charged 49 cents per page, for a total of $655. The lawsuit notes that, in the HITECH Act, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) says a “covered entity may impose a reasonable, cost-based fee,” providing that the fee is based on labor, supplies, and postage. HHS stated that the rule applies to paper and electronic copies. Providers are specifically prohibited from charging a fee for paper records when the patient has requested an electronic record. Both plaintiffs requested electronic records.
Furthermore, the HITECH Act says that, “With respect to electronic copies, we asserted that a reasonable cost-based fee includes costs attributable to the labor involved to review the access request and to produce the electronic copy, which we expected would be negligible.”
