When anyone is injured due to negligence, it is necessary to acquire the medical records of their care and treatment for proof of injury. These records are also needed in any medical malpractice claim to determine if negligence occurred. Most often this request is made by the lawyer representing the injured person. In practice, the injury client will sign a HIPAA-compliant authorization allowing for the release of her medical records and the lawyer will then make the request of the treating health care provider or institution. The health care provider then is obligated to provide the medical record at a copying cost allowed by law.

So what is the copying cost allowed by law? Long before the widespread use of electronic media, the Connecticut legislature set the cost as an amount per hard copy page plus postage, realizing that the health care provider make copies on a copying machine. For instance, a 1983 law allowed for 25 cents per page plus postage costs. As time went on, that increased to the current 65 cents per page. A similar rate was set for health care institutions such as hospitals. Soon health care providers began to outsource the copying of medical records to third-party profit-making businesses. Today these businesses make hundreds of millions of dollars annually, based on published financial data.

In modern times, most health care records are maintained in electronic format and technology allows for providing medical records on disc, thumb drive or by email. The difference in cost when charging by the page versus in disc format can be staggering. For instance, a 5,000-page hospital record at 65 cents per page costs $3,250. Whereas to provide the same records on disc, including the cost of the disc and a fair labor charge, is at most a few hundred dollars. The difference is almost $3,000 to the individual! And to the profit-driven businesses, a huge reduction in annual revenue. So far neither the Connecticut legislature nor the Connecticut Department of Public Health has addressed this transformation from paper copy to electronic format.