Section 2 amends costs that may be charged for providing copies of health records. The limitations would apply to a person who is authorized by the patient to obtain access, as well as the patient. The per page charge for paper copies is reduced from 75 cents to five cents per page, or the actual cost of making the copies, whichever is less. Maximum fees are established for time spent retrieving and copying paper records, which would be $10 for up to ten pages, $20 for 11 to 100 pages, and $30 for more than 100 pages. If a provider maintains health records electronically, the records must be available by electronic means if requested. A fee of up to $10 may be charged for transmitting electronic copies and no other fee may be charged. The law governing costs of producing x-rays is expanded to include other types of diagnostic images. In addition, only one retrieval fee may be charged for each request for copies or for electronic transmittal and a provider may not charge multiple fees by requiring separate requests for records maintained by different departments within the same entity.

Section 3 specifies that during period of time a consent for access to health records is valid, it applies to records generated up to the time the request is made, regardless of when the consent was executed, subject to any limitations specified in the consent.

Section 4 amends the law that provides exceptions from the one-year expiration date for patient consents to include the release of health records to the patient's attorney or other legal representative, subject to any period of time or duration specified in the consent.

KP:cs

Check on the status of this bill

Back to Senate Counsel and Research Bill Summaries page

This page is maintained by the Office of Senate Counsel, Research, and Fiscal Analysis for the Minnesota Senate.

Last review or update: 03/11/2009

If you see any errors on this page, please e-mail us at webmaster@senate.mn.