WMC Litigation Center Files Amicus Brief in Support of Allowing Healthcare Providers to Charge Small Fees for Sharing Medical Records
The WMC Litigation Center filed an amicus brief in the Wisconsin Supreme Court in a case involving fees for patients’ medical records. The brief was filed on behalf of the Wisconsin Civil Justice Council, Inc. The brief argues that state law allows a health care provider to charge small fees when they incur costs by sharing electronic copies of patients’ medical records upon request.
Although federal law allows such fees, a lower court ruled that state law prohibits such fees. The brief explains that this ruling is legally wrong and would harm patients in several ways: it would force health care providers to pass costs onto other patients, encourage health care providers to use inconvenient paper records instead of electronic records, and motivate health care providers to circumvent the fee limits for all types of medical records.