Records to you - yes they charge.

Records to another dr, no they should not.

I'm going to call them tomorrow morning and make them show me where it says that they are allowed to charge me to send records. They can charge to make copies but there is no reason they can't send my records in a fax. I have read nothing that allows them to charge for this legally so I'm going to try that angle.

I do believe that they should not charged if you just have them sent to another doctor.

Generally you will be charged if the records are released to you but not if sent directly to another doctor's office.

I'm sorry for the trouble you are going through! I honestly have no idea on the reasonable fees, but would guess that inconsistencies might come from having done a favor in the past, or a new office policy. Or even just a different person processing the request. Maybe you could call the requesting office and ask if they know whether this is normal/allowed procedure? I hope it works out.

On the third party thing, I've never read our HIPAA forms close enough to notice whether they mention third party copies, but I just talked with our life insurance agent today about getting records from my husband's internist (finally getting a term policy on both of us, him now and me after the birth), and the agent said that typically records requests get processed once a week when the copy service comes to doctors' offices to pick up the files, but that if we needed it done quicker, we could call and ask nicely ourselves, and they might run the copies there in the office. If you're concerned about the third party, maybe you could request a copy of your HIPAA form to see if there was fine print allowing them to use a third party to process patient approved/initiated requests for records? Or could ask if there would be any extra fees to have them copied onsite? I can see how doctor's offices would want to have large copy jobs done offsite, but can also see patient privacy concerns. Can't think of a solution there!

Hope you can keep your appt and that it goes well!

I sent a request from my new RE (fertility doctor) to my OB for my records. (If they don't get them before my appointment than they will cancel it.) Got a call from my doctor's copying service that this is going to be $75, just FYI, and would I rather they send the records to me instead or have them not send the complete records. (I looked up Missouri law and apparently they are allowed to charge $17 for handling and then 42 cents a page for copying records.) However, I can't get a clear answer (from google) on if they are allowed to charge me to send records directly to another doctor, requested by another doctor. Does anyone know anything about this?

-They've sent my records to the MFM and a different fertility clinic before with no mention of charges or anything so this has totally caught me off guard.

And for the record, not that I have anything to hide in my records, but I think it's absurd that they are allowed to send my medical records to a third party copying service in the first place. I don't really care if the people at said copying service have had HIPPA training, I didn't sign consent for strangers not even affiliated with my doctor's office to have open access my records!

UPDATE:
So this morning I called my RE's office and told them the situation and asked if they could please call on my behalf and ask dr.'s office to fax them the records directly. They said they would try but didn't sound very optimistic (but did sound surprised). She called me back just a few minutes ago to say that they are sending them directly and no charge. It was a "miscommunication".

They are lucky that this worked out the nice way because I had no qualms about showing up during one of their busiest times and saying so the entire waiting room of pregnant women would surely hear, "It was bad enough my baby died while I was in your care, now you are going to charge me $75 to send my records to a doctor that you referred me to!!!" Luckily I didn't have to resort to that, but I was getting ready for it.

*sigh* I just hate how every step along the way is turning into a battle, even for simple stuff like this.