How Long Should You Maintain Your Medical Records?

A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a False Claims Act case allows case filings up to 10 years after an event. The case is in line with the ICS’ general recommendations regarding the retention of patient records. Watch the video to learn more!

Transcript:

Some of you may have been made aware that there was a recent Supreme Court ruling in regard to medical record retention. The first thing I want to tell you is, what we’ve been telling our doctors for decades is that you should keep your records for a period of 10 years, or until a minor patient, someone who’s under 18 reaches the age of 22. That has not changed. What I want to do is really kind of update you on the Supreme Court ruling that happened that ultimately, it was a ruling in regards to the False Claims Act, and what the ruling indicated was that ultimately, the False Claims Act and governmental action can actually take place as much as 10 years after an incident occurs. And so ultimately, what that does is actually solidifies it makes it a bit more codified, so it’s not just a variety of things that we’re looking at. But really, we can center in on that particular piece, at least for adults, to give clarity on exactly what those requirements are.

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So, just give you a couple of other details. In essence, what the law indicates is the government can begin to take or must take action three years after they should have known of the incident, but never greater than 10 years. And so what happened in this particular Cochise consultancy versus the United States case, is that they didn’t discover it until late it was right towards the end, and what the Supreme Court ruled was they do have up to that full 10 years to bring a False Claims Act claim. But ultimately, that just solidifies further our ongoing recommendation to our doctors, that you should be keeping your medical records for a period of 10 years for adults.

Now, I got another question today in regards to something to do with a minor, and how that actually works. You should keep those records for a minimum of 10 years, but you have to keep them until that patient reaches the age of 22, which means you very well could be keeping them longer than 10 years as well, it’s whichever is greater. So when the patient reaches the age of 22, or 10 years, whichever is greater. So if you treat a 15-year-old, you’ll wait till 25. And until that patient would be 25. If you treat an infant, you’re gonna keep those records for 22 years until that patient, you know, turns 22. But this interesting case out of the Supreme Court really does solidify the 10 years and gives us now a hard fast federal indication of exactly how long you should be keeping your medical records. Illinois doesn’t have anything that’s more stringent than 10 years. And so that still holds true, 10 years for adults until the patient reaches 22 or 10 years for a minor whichever is greater. Hopefully, that helps you and we’ll catch you next week.