As we all know, we have a responsibility to keep treatment records for a number of years. The rules differ from State to State, so I won’t quote them here. But, if you don’t know the current rules related to documentation retention, you should.
While most clinicians who have been practicing for any great length of time have more than one file cabinet in their office that at least used to store a lot of paper. With the wide adoption of electronic health records, the need for the old file cabinet has been reduced.
More space in your office for something more important -- like a Latte Machine!
But don’t get seduced by the idea that you have transferred the responsibility of treatment record retention to your EHR vendor.
While their contract with you guarantees that your records are “safe with them” and they will follow their documentation retention requirements for your State, they are still not ultimately on the hook for their retention – you are.
This is not an alarm bell; this is just a reminder. EHR companies have plenty of redundancy and backup capabilities to keep your records safe. But that responsibility ends when you end your contract with them.
So, the real alarm bell rings when and if you decide to move to a new EHR vendor. Do it in a planful and thoughtful manner. Maintain a strong inventory of all the records you have in their system and have a great plan, including an audit, for downloading all of those records before the contract ends.
If you need those records down the road for an insurance audit, or a legal question, and the records no longer exist, you are the one at risk, not your previous EHR Vendor.
While your previous EHR vendor might retain the records for a short period of time after you end your contract, and that might be spelled out in your contract with them, they will generally not have any responsibility for long term storage beyond the life of your contract.
So, have a plan.