The liability falls on you to handle patient data in a compliant way. Patient privacy is a serious topic, legislation from the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act place heavy fines on medical professionals who mistreat patient information.
“An authorization is a detailed document that gives covered entities permission to use protected health information for specified purposes, which are generally other than treatment, payment, or health care operations, or to disclose protected health information to a third party specified by the individual.” – HHS.gov
A medical release form does not empower your staff to share patient information with just anyone. Depending on what is included in the form, the document may release medical information to the patient’s family, other doctors, insurance providers, attorneys, or anyone who may make healthcare decisions on behalf of the patient.
Your medical release form will require the patient’s information, which will include; the patient’s name, phone number, address, email address, date of birth, social security number, and other identifiable information that is relevant. If a parent or guardian needs to release medical information on behalf of their child, the name and signature of the parent or guardian will need to be included as well.
Included on the medical release form will be an area for the patient to state who may access their medical records. This will include the names, titles, addresses, and contact information of the receiving party. Have your patients fill out a new medical release form for each receiving party. Using separate forms will enable you to group separate types of patient information with difference receiving parties.
You may have the patient list the types of information that you need to be shared. This may include tests, results, scans, notes, or images. The patient may limit the information that is shared by condition, date, body part and so on.
The patient will need to indicate why their medical record is being released. Normal options include; insurance claim, medical disability, college immunization, specialist consultation, social security certification, inform child’s nurse at school, and more.
This date will give the patient a record of when their release form expires. Typically, medical release forms will have a default expiration of 90 days. However, you may choose whatever expiration date you would like, but 90 days is the standard. This means you will have to request additional authorization of record release forms as they expire, but this will help protect your business by acquiring more written approval.
Give your patient information about their rights and how their medical records will be used. You should tell the patient that they are under no obligation to release their medical records and they can revoke their authorization to release at any time. This is also a good place to mention any fees associated with the release of the record.
Have your patients e-sign and date the authorization form. Completed medical records release forms will be submitted directly to your account online. Review authorization of record release forms online.
Always get the information you need with required fields. Patients can only submit medical release forms when they complete all of your required fields. Never receive an incomplete medical release form again.
Collect electronic patient signatures before the appointment. Easily give your patients the ability to digitally sign medical release forms with their phone, tablet, or computer.
Have your patient take a picture of their insurance and ID cards. New patients will automatically upload a photo of their card information, so you can verify it before the appointment.
Have your patient enter information once and have it autocomplete throughout your medical release form online. Automatically populate PHI directly into additional fields and medical release forms.
Patients sign and submit medical release forms securely to your online account. Review and manage completed medical release forms before the appointment.
Only show information that is relevant to the patient with conditional logic medical release forms. Make it simple for your patients to complete your medical release forms and improve the accuracy of the data you receive with conditional logic.
FormDr gives your practice everything needed to easily send and receive HIPAA compliant forms online. We help practices who:
