MONDAY, Nov. 2, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Free, electronic access to notes written about them by their doctors will become available to millions of Americans on Monday.
That is when many health systems will open up their records under a new federal transparency measure. The final deadline for doing so is next April, the Associated Press reported.
While patients already had the right to see their medical records, including doctor notes, getting access to them could require completing requests, paying fees, and waiting for a response. Those delays and barriers must be removed under a 2016 law.
Even before the measure took effect, patients in about 15 percent of health care systems could read doctor notes online without charge, the AP reported.
