NY Spine Medicine has agreed to pay $100,000 to settle a claim of not providing a patient timely access to her medical records.
"No one should have to wait over a year to get copies of their medical records," Roger Severino, director of the Office for Civil Rights at HHS said in a news release last week. "HIPAA entitles patients to timely access to their records, and we will continue our stepped-up enforcement of the right of access until covered entities get the message."
In July 2019, the patient charged that despite repeated requests to NY Spine Medicine for certain medical records, she failed to receive all of them in a timely manner.
The practice, which has locations in New York City and Miami Beach, Fla., gave her some records, but not the diagnostic films she specifically requested, according to her complaint.
The Office for Civil Rights found that the practice's failure to provide the records violated HIPPAA's right of access standard, which entitles patients to timely and affordable access to their medical records.
The patient did not receive copies of her requested medical records until this month, more than a year after her request, and after a federal investigation of her complaint ended.
The corrective action plan that NY Spine Medicine has agreed to follow includes two years of monitoring.