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Medical Records Fight Lands In Appeals Court

Leon County Judge John Cooper on June 30, 2022, in a screen grab from The Florida Channel.
Barry Gutierrez/NPR
/
The Florida Channel
Leon County Judge John Cooper on June 30, 2022, in a screen grab from The Florida Channel.

A long-running dispute about the cost of patient medical records has gone to a state appeals court.

An administrative law judge in December upheld a Florida Board of Medicine plan that would increase the cost of copies of patient records.

But opponents, including the Florida Justice Association trial-lawyers group, filed a notice this month as a first step in challenging the decision at the 1st District Court of Appeal.

State law gives the Board of Medicine, which regulates physicians, the authority to adopt rules about how much patients, governmental agencies and other entities can be charged when requesting copies of medical records. In the past, patients and governmental entities have been charged as much as $1 per page for the first 25 pages and 25 cents a page for each additional page.

But the Board of Medicine plan called for setting a maximum of $1 a page.