how long do I need to keep my paper records as I went to EHR?

Paul,

You may have an opinion, but you are not an attorney. In every podiatric practice sale I have been involved im, it was ALWAYS the seller who is responsible for records of previous patients. This makes sense since it is the seller, not the buyer who actually treated the patient.

While I agree with both Drs. Freedman and Block, the question which I believe is being posed here is and has not yet been answered, is:

Who actually is responsible the purchaser of the practice or the seller?

My non-legal opinion is that the contract should spell out the responsible party. In my humble opinion it is the purchaser which should be held totallly accountable. It is the purchaser that benefits the most from retaining this historical data after the seller's role in the practice is completed no matter what the reason for the sellers departure. The reason doesn't matter, it simply is the practice which is benefiting from retaining these records and they should be held responsible.

As for putting those into action, I agree with both Drs. Block and Freedman that your health care attorney should provide you with the logistics of the above and the advice to follow below.

As to what should be done with these files, which may be massive in number, there are several options, ranging from bad to best.

The seller's home basement. Neither secure or HIPAA compliant. Very bad idea. I heard a busy internist had done this and I suggested this could become an issue for her. Eventually it did, when a patient required records and the doctor's staff told her

the retired doctor would need to retrieve them from her basement when she returned from an extended vacation. The patient reported this and the doctor now faces a huge fine in addition to costs to remey this solution.

Thus a bad idea from the security perspective, time requirements and HIPAA issues.

Storage facilities: Security (thus HIPPA) issues vary by facility and there is an inconvenience factor. Today these facilities are a dime a dozen but they have a monthly cost which is subject to inflation.

Best options:

Alternatively, there are companies which will come to your facility to both scan and shred massive amounts of documents in a HIPAA compliant fashion overnight or over the weekend.

Another option for the DIY, is to rent a commercial scanner and shredder, which can scan and shred the documents yourself.

While these are as a one time expense fairly high, over time they may be the least expensive. Once the material is scanned, the files can be uploaded to a secure cloud location. They can also be placed on a hard drive, which is local to the office and which can be cloned every few years, because physical drives don't last forever.

To sum up, have the purchaser pay to scan these files to a dedicated drive which is also uploaded to the cloud. The drive should be cloned on a regular basis (e.g. every three years) and the paper files can be shred.

Before you act on any of this, consult your health care attorney.

It depends on many factors, including what state you practice in, what insurance carrier the patient has, and the age of the patient. The general rule is to save records for seven (7) years, but there are some exceptions to this.

For example, if you treat a child, you must hold the record until the child turns either 18 or 21 (depending on the state you practice in) PLUS the statute of limitations in that state. It's always best to consult with a healthcare attorney in your state.

Medical records must be kept 10 years if you are billing any Medicare Advantage plans, otherwise with regard to HIPAA, retained for 6 years. If you treat minors for example in MD, medical records must be kept for five years after the record is created or until the patient turns 21, whichever is later. You should always check with your state for any specific requirements as well!