Florida Patients, Lawyers Face Steep Fees For Record Copies

Jennifer Bresnick | EHR Intelligence | December 6, 2013

EHRs aren’t doing much to streamline the documentation reproduction process for providers, patients, and legal teams in Florida.  After proposing a hike in the per-page rate to produce copies of patient records this summer, the Florida Board of Medicine has followed through by determining that whether a record is paper or electronic, patients and lawyers asking for files on their clients’ behalf will fork over nearly four times the current rate.

The original rule sets the cost of reproducing records at one dollar per page for the first 25 pages and then 25 cents per page for any additional pages after that.  The new rule, unanimously voted in by Board members this week, changes the fee structure to a flat $1 charge per page no matter how many pages are being requested.  If the “actual cost” of reproducing a page is less than $1, providers will be required to charge the lesser fee.  However, the Board provides no framework to determine the actual cost, especially for EHR files, reports Health News Florida.