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Committee approves 10‑year medical‑records retention requirement for providers
Summary
House Bill 10‑67 would require health care providers to retain records for at least 10 years; sponsor framed the bill as a response to a constituent's inability to obtain records after a provider closed and records went into paid storage that later became inaccessible.
House Bill 10‑67, which would require health care providers to retain patient records for at least 10 years, passed the Public Health Committee after discussion about storage, notice to patients and access to electronic records.
Representative Bangor, the bill sponsor, said the measure grew from a constituent case in which a retired veteran could not obtain medical records after his physician’s office closed and records had been sent to a digitization/holding facility that later stopped providing access because storage fees were not paid. Bangor said the bill requires providers to retain records for not less than 10 years and declined to mandate an immediate transfer obligation when a practice closes, characterizing 10 years as a compromise.
Members asked whether an existing standard already governs retention and whether the bill would apply retroactively; the sponsor said 10 years is prospective and would take effect on Nov. 1, 2025, and would not recover records lost before that date. Committee members also discussed electronic health‑record vendors and ownership; a committee member stated that medical records remain the patient's records and cannot be released without the patient's permission. The sponsor said electronic storage should simplify compliance but noted cases where records were inaccessible because a storage contract was not paid.
The committee approved the bill on a recorded vote; the tally was recorded as six yeas, zero nays and the bill was declared passed.
