Medical record retrieval
Every record you asked for, or a documented reason why not
Our team has worked inside a large hospital’s release of information department. We know which authorizations a custodian will accept, and what to do when one comes back saying there is nothing to release.
Record types
What medical record retrieval covers
Grouped by where the records live and how they have to be handled.
The chart and what follows it
Written records from the providers who treated the patient.
The chart from hospitals, clinics, and treating providers. The complete record, or scoped to the dates of service, departments, or providers you specify.
Prescription and fill history from the pharmacy that dispensed it. The chart shows what was prescribed. This shows what was actually filled, and for how long.
Run reports from the responding agency, often the earliest documentation of how an injury happened.
Physical media
Objects, not files. They have to be released and transported.
The actual imaging, not just the radiologist’s report.
Slides and blocks, retrieved from the lab that holds them. Physical objects that have to be released, packed, and transported rather than transmitted.
Looking for the bills rather than the chart? Anesthesiologist, ER physician, radiologist, pathologist, EMS, and hospital billing are handled as billing records retrieval.
Why requests fail
Requests fail for a few predictable reasons
These are the three we run into most, and what we do about each.
When they say no records
Often there are. A search run on the wrong name, the wrong date range, or the wrong department comes back empty even though the patient was treated. We go back with what the chart shows, and records that did not exist a week earlier are released.
Records held elsewhere
Imaging is often read by an outside radiology group. Slides stay with whichever laboratory processed them. When a record you asked for is not held by the hospital, working out who does have it is our job rather than yours. It is also why billing records retrieval is a separate service.
Authorizations that fail
Behavioral health, substance use treatment, deceased patients, and minors all carry rules a standard HIPAA form does not satisfy. A request sent on the wrong paperwork does not bounce back in three days. It sits. We check the authorization against what the custodian will actually accept before it goes out.
You name the facility. We do not stop at the first no. More about where that comes from.
Who this is for
Two kinds of client, one process
Law firms
Personal injury, mass tort, medical malpractice, workers’ compensation, and any matter that turns on a treatment history. Records stay in your portal for the life of the case.
Record retrieval for law firmsInsurance companies
Life, disability, and auto carriers, plus mass tort and litigation files. Flat rate per request, so the cost per file does not move with your volume.
Record retrieval for insuranceIn their words
What clients say
Common questions
What people ask about retrieval
The answers you would otherwise have to get on a call. Here they are instead.
It is the process of requesting a patient’s records from the hospitals, clinics, and providers that hold them, on behalf of a law firm or insurance company, under a signed authorization. A retrieval company handles the authorization, the request, the follow up with the custodian, and the delivery, so your own staff is not spending its week on hold with a records department.
Yes, and the difference matters. The report is the radiologist’s written interpretation. The imaging is the study itself, which is what your expert will want to look at.
Yes. Slides and blocks are physical objects rather than files, so they have to be located at the lab that processed them, released, packed, and tracked in transit. We handle that end to end.
No. Emergency room physicians, radiologists, anesthesiologists, and pathologists rarely bill through the hospital, and our team handles the discovery of who does. Those records are retrieved as billing records retrieval.
We do not take that as the final answer. A no records response often means the search was run on a name, a date range, or a department that did not match. When the rest of the file shows the treatment happened, we go back to the provider with it. A good number of those responses turn into released records.
Yes. Those sit with the pharmacy that dispensed the medication rather than the treating facility, so they are a separate request. They are worth having when compliance, a gap in treatment, or a pre-existing condition is in dispute, because the chart shows what was prescribed and only the pharmacy shows what was filled.
The custodian sets the timeline, not us. What we control is whether your request is being worked and whether you can see where it stands. From the day you submit, your portal shows the current stage, how many days it has been open, and the date of your next update, so you are not emailing us to ask.
Records are requested, handled, and released under HIPAA. Nothing is sent as an email attachment. Everything comes through the DocuSwift Pro Portal, encrypted end to end, and completed requests stay there so you can download the same file again later.
All 50 states. We are based in Texas and retrieve records from hospitals, clinics, and providers nationwide.
One flat retrieval fee per completed request, plus whatever the provider charged for the records, passed through at cost with no markup. No contract and no minimum. See pricing.
Get started
Send us the first one
Tell us the facility, the dates, and what you need, and we will set the request up with you. Requests are submitted and tracked through the portal, so this is the first step rather than the whole process.
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No contract and no minimum
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Every request tracked in your portal from the day it goes out
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Questions before you submit? Call 832-449-8076
Whatever is on your list
Charts, EMS, pharmacy, imaging, specimens. No contract and no minimum, so start with one and see how it goes.