Wiki Storage of many pages of reports?

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fairmontmedical

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If a primary care doctor receives reports from specialists that are 30 pages long...do they have to store every page of the report in the patient's chart? I can't find guidance on this anywhere. With EMR systems we sometimes receive many pages in reports and its difficult to store them all. We also receive them by fax.
Any advice will be greatly appreciated!
 
I don't think you are required to store them, but it should really be up to your provider to determine what they need in the chart and what they do not. Why are you saying that it is 'difficult' to store them? An EMR should easily be able to accommodate records of this size and the technology that's available should make it a quick process to load these into your patient charts. In the end, it might be more difficult to try to figure out what is needed than what is not and might be simpler to just keep them. And it's certainly preferable to have them available if needed rather than to have to request them against if you've disposed of them and it turns out your provider needs them at a later date.
 
It's difficult to store them because we are still using paper charts.. so filing 30 pages from a specialist really takes up space in the chart. In this case, is it ok to keep a few relevant pages (signed of course) - like the actual CT scan report, and not all the extra stuff that gets printed?
I can't find any requirements noted anywhere about this.
Thanks for your help!
 
You mentioned EMR systems in your initial post, so I was assuming you had electronic charts. Really, it's best to move away from paper charts in this day and age.

But either way, as I said, I'm not aware there are any requirements that you keep these. They are not your own physician's records, they are just copies, the originals of which the specialist will still have on file, so your physician can elect to dispose of them (securely) if he or she determines that they are not needed. Or course, any original records that are created within your own practice must be retained for the period of time required by your state's records retention laws.
 
Thank you for your help! I agree, no requirements to be found. I appreciate your insight and will only keep relevant pages, shred the rest.
 
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