Patient Requests Transfer

Patient Requests Transfer

If a patient requests that a physician transfer his or her
records, the transfer should take place in a timely fashion.
The physician may charge the patient a reasonable
fee to reflect the cost of the materials used, the time
required to prepare the material and the direct cost of
sending the material to the requesting physician.12
Prepayment of the fee for a transfer of medical records
may only be requested when, in the best judgment of
the treating physician, the patient’s health and safety
will not be put at risk if the records are not transferred.
In some circumstances, it will be desirable for the
transferring physician to prepare a summary of the
records rather than to provide a copy of the whole
record. This is acceptable to the College as long as it is
acceptable to the receiving physician and the patient.
The physician is still obligated to retain the original
record, in its entirety, for the time period required by
regulation.
The obligation to pay the account rests with the
patient or with the third party who has requested the
records. Fulfilling such a request is an uninsured service
and reasonable attempts may be made on the part
of the physician to collect the fee.

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RETAINING AND TRANSFERRING

RETAINING AND TRANSFERRING

Generally speaking, physicians must always keep the
original medical record themselves. Only copies of the
record should be transferred to others.

Retaining Medical Records
Regulation requires that physicians keep medical
records for a certain period of time. For adult
patients, the rule is that records must be retained for
10 years from the date of the last entry in the record.
For patients who are children, the regulation requires
that the physician keep the record until 10 years after
the day on which the patient reached or would have
reached the age of 18 years. However, it is prudent to
maintain records for a minimum of 15 years because,
in accordance with the Limitations Act, some legal
proceedings against physicians can be brought 15
years after the act or omission on which the claim is
based took place.11
Physicians may also be required to retain records
longer than the above time periods when they receive
a request for access to personal health information.
Where such a request has been made, physicians must
retain the personal health information for as long as
necessary to allow for an individual to take any
recourse that is available to them under PHIPA.
The retention rules are different for physicians who
cease to practise medicine, please see below for more
detail. See Appendix A for the applicable regulation.

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