Attorneys who need their clients’ medical records remember or are aware of the hopes and dashing of hopes that came and went with the implementation of the HITECH Act and then the Ciox v. Azar decision. Then the Cures Act offered new hope. Federal regulations resulting from the Cures Act, some of which were effective at the beginning of 2024, appear not to have delivered on the promise understood to have been made. Attorneys wanted the ability to easily request records for their clients and pay the “patient rate” dangled before us in the HITECH Act. If that was the way you understood the promise, then please reconsider. Current options may be better than you think.

If you gave up on doing HITECH requests and went back to sending requests to providers with the patient’s direction to send the records right to you, following up relentlessly, getting records, and paying the hard-to-stomach cost for electronic records; read on.