Lawsuit Alleges Hospitals Overcharges Patients For Medical Records
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
A class action lawsuit charges hospitals – including Mount Sinai – with overcharging patients for copies of medical records to the tune of $7 million.
A class action suit representing 100 patients has been slapped on New York-based Mount Sinai Hospital, Montefiore Medical Group, Beth Israel Medical Center, and release of information service company HealthPort Technologies for reportedly violating New York State’s public health law regarding medical record request fees, according to a Law360 report. The group has been accused of allegedly overcharging patients for copies of their medical records, accumulating a total of $7 million in overpayments.
The suit alleges that the three hospitals and HealthPort Technologies, the company responsible for handling the record requests, overcharged patients and clients by up to 50 cents per page. New York Public Health Law stipulates fees for medical records are not to exceed 75 cents per page and that fees are not to exceed the actual costs incurred by the provider.
In 2013 alone, HealthPort allegedly handled and processed over 14 million pages of medical records for attorneys requesting records from New York healthcare providers, a number that would denote an overcharge of approximately $7 million each year – just for cases pertaining to attorney requests – if the allegations are true.
The complaint reads in part, "Defendants have … deliberately engaged in a practice of fixing or charging standard or uniform fees … without regard for their actual costs incurred.” At this time, it is unclear what contractual relationship existed between HealthPort and the three hospitals, and HealthPort recently denied all liability in the case. The three hospitals have not responded to the complaint, according to the report.
In addition to the myriad state laws detailing medical record request fees, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, stipulates that healthcare providers and business associates may only claim a "reasonable cost-based fee" for the preparation and transmittal of the records. And, in this case, HIPAA may be relevant.
In accordance with HIPAA, "If a State permits a charge of 25 cents per page, but a covered entity is able to provide an electronic copy at a cost of five cents per page, then the covered entity may not charge more than five cents per page (since that is the reasonable and cost-based amount)."
In a similar case that transpired back in 2005, Recordex Acquisition Corp., a company that handled medical record requests for some 40 Philadelphia-based hospitals, was accused of charging clients at least $1.2 million in overcharges for these requests.
In 2007, a Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed a lower court's judgment siding in favor of the plaintiffs and awarding them nearly $600,000 in a class action settlement. Under current Pennsylvania law, medical record charges are not to exceed $1.42 for pages 1-20, $1.05 for pages 21-60 and 34 cents for 61 through the end.