Generally, the answer is yes. California Health and Safety Code Section 123100 through 123135 explain the rights of patients with regard to their medical records. Adult patients, minor patients who can legally consent to treatment and patient representatives are entitled to inspect and to obtain copies of all or any portion of the patient’s medical records. To inspect or to obtain copies of medical records, the patient or representative must make a written request to the physician. A physician must make the records available for inspection within five working days after receipt of the written request and must make copies of the records available within fifteen days after receipt of the written request.

Patients and their representatives are not entitled to copies of x-rays or tracings from electrocardiography, electroencephalography, or electromyography provided that the originals are provided to another health care provider within fifteen days of the receipt of a written request from the patient or patient’s representative.

A physician may opt to provide a summary of a patient’s medical records for inspection and copying by the patient. If the provider chooses to prepare a summary instead of allowing access to the entire record, he or she must make the summary available to the patient within ten days of the written request. However, the provider may take up to thirty days to prepare a summary if the record is extraordinarily long or if the patient was discharged from a licensed health facility within the past ten days.

Costs
Patients and their representatives may be required to pay a fee of up to $.25 per page or $.50 cents per page for records copied from microfilm as well as reasonable clerical costs for copies of their records. However, for patients or representatives who need medical records in order to support a claim of eligibility for a public benefit program such as Medi-Cal, SSI or Social Security, fees cannot be charged upon providing evidence that the records are necessary to support such a claim.

If cost is a concern, Health Rights Hotline often advises patients who require copies of their medical records to first inspect the records in order to identifying the specific portion of their medical records that they would like copied. This can significantly reduce the costs associated with copying. However, patients and their representatives may be charged reasonable amounts for the clerical work involved in preparing the records for inspection. Patients who request that copies of their x-rays and tracings from electrocardiography, electroencephalography, or electromyography be sent to another health care provider may also be charged reasonable fees to cover the cost of transmitting such records.

Exceptions
There are some exceptions to the right of a patient or patient representative to review and/or obtain copies of his or her medical records. The first exception is in the case of a minor patient whose representative requests the records and the physician believes in good faith that access to the records requested by the representative would have an adverse effect on the physician’s relationship with the patient or if the physician believes that it would have a negative effect on the minor’s physical safety or psychological well-being.

A physician may also refuse a patient’s request to review or receive copies of mental health records if the physician believes that there is substantial risk of significant adverse or detrimental consequences to the patient if access were allowed. In these cases, the physician must document that the request for records and include it in the patient’s file along with an explanation of why the physician refused to permit the patient to review the records, including a description of the potential adverse consequences to the patient if review is allowed. The physician must also allow a physician, psychologist, marriage, family, and child counselor, or licensed clinical social worker designated by the patient to review the records. If this occurs, the physician must so indicate in the mental health records and the individual authorized to review or obtain copies of such records may not allow the patient to review them. Finally, the physician is required to inform the patient of the decision to deny access to the records and of the patient’s right to appoint a designee to review them.

Refer to the Medical Board of California’s website for more information or if you are having trouble accessing your medical records.