Earlier this year, OCR announced this initiative promising to vigorously enforce the rights of patients to receive copies of their medical records promptly and without being overcharged.
Bayfront Health St. Petersburg (Bayfront) has paid $85,000 to OCR and has adopted a corrective action plan to settle a potential violation of the right of access provision of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Rules after Bayfront failed to provide a mother timely access to records about her unborn child.
Bayfront, based in St. Petersburg, Florida, is a Level II trauma and tertiary care center licensed as a 480-bed hospital with over 550 affiliated physicians. OCR initiated its investigation based on a complaint from the mother.
As a result, Bayfront directly provided the individual with the requested health information more than nine months after the initial request.
The HIPAA Rules generally require covered healthcare providers to provide medical records within 30 days of the request and providers can only charge a reasonable cost-based fee. This right to patient records extends to parents who seek medical information about their minor children, and in this case, a mother who sought prenatal health records about her child.
