Your patient portal isn't your medical record: what HIPAA access actually covers
If you build or use health software, a common misunderstanding is that the patient portal is the record. It's a view. Under HIPAA, patients generally have a right to access protected health information in a provider's or plan's designated record set , which can include much more than the portal screen shows. Key takeaways: Portals (MedlinePlus: visits, results, billing, prescriptions, messaging)…
Many people mistakenly believe that their patient portal is their complete medical record. However, patient portals are merely a view into a smaller portion of a provider or health plan's designated record set under HIPAA regulations. This record set can encompass a broader range of information than what patients typically see on their portal screen.
Patient portals commonly display patient visits, test results, billing statements, medication prescriptions, and messaging features. Nevertheless, these portals often fail to show crucial information such as consult notes from other providers, scanned documents, and imaging results.
When a patient requests a copy of their electronic protected health information, covered entities must provide it within 30 calendar days, with an additional 30-day extension permitted if the entity provides a written explanation for the delay. Each doctor or healthcare organization may have its own unique portal, resulting in scattered records for patients.
For further details, one can refer to the comprehensive explanation provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR), and Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) at https://www.trianglehealth.com/answers/patient-portal-vs-full-medical-record.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
