HIPAA Compliant Medical Record Shredding
We shred your outdated medical records at your healthcare facility or wherever they are stored in Springfield Massachusetts six days a week. To get a quote and make an appointment just give us a call. You can have service as soon as tomorrow or any day you prefer.
Speak To Experts & Get A Quote Over The Phone Today
We have been servicing healthcare providers with on-site shredding of medical records for many years in the Springfield Massachusetts area. Our experienced staff is available to speak with you so we can put together a service that meets your needs. We can give you a quote right over the phone and set up your service date at the same time. Your service can start tomorrow.
Two Great Options for the Destruction of Healthcare Files
One-time File Purges – If your medical office needs to do a purge of charts once a year or you want to reduce boxes of medical records you have at an offsite storage facility our one-time service is a great way to go. This service is for any occasional need to shred patient charts and records.
Ongoing Shredding Programs – If your office staff is throwing out documents regularly if not daily you need to put a shredding program in place. We will place our locked collection containers in your office so anytime your staff is throwing out a document they do so in one of the locked containers. We will arrive at your office on a recurring basis to empty and shred the contents of each receptacle. Your schedule can be weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, every other month, or quarterly.
Who Needs To Destroy Medical Records?
Every doctor’s office, urgent care centers, ambulatory surgical centers, laboratories, hospitals, and all other healthcare providers need to shred medical records when they are being disposed of. In 1996, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was passed into law. Part of the act, included a privacy rule, with significant privacy protections for Protected Health Information (PHI) and severe penalties for violations. That means if you are disposing of patient charts they need to be shredded.
The HIPAA Privacy Rule
Under HIPAA, the term for protected documents refers to Protected Health Information, (PHI). The rule calls for specific methods of destruction of PHI. Just tossing hard copy information in dumpsters or any trash receptacle without being shredded is a violation.
Approved destruction methods include:
The rule requires PHI to be made unreadable, incapable of reconstruction, indecipherable, and impossible to reconstruct. Shredding, pulping, burning, and pulverizing are approved methods of destroying medical records.
When You Can Shred Medical Records in Massachusetts
Medical Records for adult patients must be maintained for a minimum of seven years from the date of the last patient encounter. If a patient is a minor on the date of the last visit, then the physician must maintain the pediatric patient’s records for a minimum period of either seven years from the date of the last patient encounter or until the patient reaches the age of eighteen, whichever is the longer retention period.
A retiring physician or his successor must maintain patient records for seven years from the date of the last patient encounter.
You Should Keep Documentation of Destroyed Medical Records
In addition to written policies and procedures on retention and destruction, it is recommended that a healthcare facility maintain documentation of the medical records that are destroyed. These logs should be maintained permanently. These logs should include the following:
- Date of destruction
- Method of destruction
- Description of the destroyed records
- The signatures of the individuals supervising and witnessing the destruction
FileShred makes logging destroyed patient charts easy by providing you with a Certificate of Destruction.
The Benefits of Outsourcing Destruction of Medical Information to FileShred
Hospitals, clinics, laboratories, and physician offices are in the business of providing healthcare. Even with the implementation of Electronic Medical Records Systems (EMRs) the amount of paper and other hard copy documentation produced in health care facilities is immense. Those healthcare providers that destroy records in-house learn quickly that it is a time-consuming task. Paying staff to feed medical records through a small shredder is expensive. Outsourcing document destruction to FileShred makes destroying medical records easy and cost-effective. All you have to do is show us what files you want shredded and we do the rest.
Patient Access to Medical Records
A patient is entitled to inspect or receive a copy of his or her medical record, not the original. The Medical Board requires that a physician maintain the original patient’s medical history so it will be available to assist any future health care provider.
Give FileShred a call today.
