Campaign to raise awareness on right to access medical records

Not many are aware that it is obligatory for doctors and hospitals to provide the copy of the case record or medical record to the patient or his legal representative.
Indian Medical Association (IMA) has now embarked on a campaign to raise awareness among its 2.5 lakh members about the rights of patients and the laws that govern the area.
"Every patient has a right to claim medical records pertaining to his treatment and the hospitals are under obligation to maintain them and provide them to the patient on request. As per the Medical Council of India (MCI) ethics regulations, not giving records can amount to professional misconduct," said Dr KK Aggarwal, Secretary General of IMA.

The MCI has imposed an obligation on Hospitals as per the regulations notified on March 11, 2002, amended up to December 2010, to maintain the medical record and provide a patient access to it.
According to them, every physician shall maintain the medical records pertaining to his/her indoor patients for a period of three years from the date of commencement of the treatment in a standard proforma laid down by the Medical Council of India.
If any request is made for medical records either by the patients, authorised attendant or legal authorities involved, the same may be duly acknowledged and documents shall be issued within the period of 72 hours.

"As per the proposed/draft 'Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Rules, 2010, copies of all records and statistics shall be kept with the clinical establishment concerned for at least 3 or 5 years or in accordance with any other relevant Act in force at the time," said Dr Aggarwal.
As per Regulation 1.3.1 of the Indian Medical Council (Professional conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations, 2002, "Every physician shall maintain the medical records pertaining to his/her indoor patients for a period of 3 years from the date of commencement of the treatment in a standard proforma laid down by the Medical Council of India and attached as Appendix 3".

As per Rule 6F (3) of the Income Tax Rules, 1962, doctors in private practice are required to preserve the daily case register as per Form 3C for a period of six years from the end of the relevant assessment year. That would ordinarily mean for seven years from the close of the accounting year.