Topic:
Medical records of deceased family members
(Sullivan, D-Rushville; Brady, R-Bloomington-Normal) cleans up the statutes given family members the ability to get medical records of deceased family members without being forced to open an estate. It does four things. (1) The federal Department of Heath and Human Services has interpreted the 2003 federal Privacy Rule that a patient or their representative may not be charged a “handling” or “retrieval” fee; the only fees that may be charged are reasonable per-page fees. This change makes clear that this protection applies as well to a patient’s personal representative under the recently enacted medical records’ statute at § 8-2001.5. (2) Changes “may” to “must” to remove a conflict with the federal privacy law and Illinois’ current statute. Under the federal Privacy Rule release of medical records is required to be given to a decedent’s executor or administrator or “or other person who has authority to act on behalf of a deceased individual or of the individual’s estate. (3) This change addresses the Privacy Rule requirement that patient records be restricted to patient representatives. This deems the individual’s patient representative when no other patient representative exists, such as an administrator or executor. (4) This requires that a person purporting to be a personal representative seeking records under this statute must certify that to be true under penalty of perjury so that there is some evidence that is true. Passed both chambers.