Any of the people that has been injured in a given car accident could find out that they needed to obtain their own medical records. The legal system allows for the granting of such records, in most cases.

Situations that can force a plaintiff to seek possession of copies of his or her medical records.

Plaintiff has filed a personal injury lawsuit and his/her Personal Injury Lawyer in Halifax needs evidence. The victim/plaintiff must see a specialist, one that has acquired experience with treating injuries like those sustained by the victim.

Rulings within the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA)

Each adult has the right to request his or her own records. Any person’s designated representative can request the medical records of the person that signed the certificate that has acknowledged the representative’s powers. The designated representative for someone that is deceased can obtain the medical records of the decedent.

A legal guardian can seek the medical records for the person that has acknowledged the guardian’s role.

A parent can have a child’s medical records, unless that same child gets medical care at the direction of the court, or if the parent has agreed to honor a confidential relationship between the child and his or her medical provider.

Information that can be withheld by the medical provider:

Notes made during a psychotherapy session. The term psychotherapy refers to any form of counseling that has as its foundation the relationship that has developed between the patient and the mental health professional. That tends to be a unique sort of relationship.

Information that the medical provider has collected, so that the same information can be used in a lawsuit.

Information that could endanger the life or safety of the patient, or the life/safety of other people. For instance, if a medical provider thought that a patient might be inclined to commit suicide, then that same provider would have reason to withhold details on a patient’s physical illness, facts on the patient’s family history, or anything that might trigger feelings of abandonment or failure within the highly-sensitive patient.

Rules about refusing to include certain facts in a record that has been offered by a medical provider.

A medical provider cannot hold back some of a patient’s records without offering a reasonable explanation for that action. That explanation cannot be delivered orally to the person that has requested the records. Instead, the denial of some facts found in a patient’s records must follow the delivery of a written statement. That same statement should warn about the absence of certain facts in delivered medical records.

Moreover, mere mention of the facts’ absence is not enough. Instead, the information-poor records should come with a clear explanation for the facts’ absence.