Non-Permanent Record Retention

• Hospital record retention policies vary.Hospital Files image by PinkSony from Fotolia.com
  
  Record retention policy varies greatly between states and hospitals. Many hospitals still use paper records. With insufficient space available to store these records and insufficient funds to convert them to other media, many hospitals retain records for only 10 or 20 years. Any records past the period of the hospital's record retention policy are destroyed, and thus can't be retrieved by patients when later health issues make retrieval necessary.
  
  

Permanent Record Retention Policy

• Some hospitals save only portions of a patient's permanent record, such as mental health information.chart image by Byron Moore from Fotolia.com
  
  Many hospitals save only portions of the record, such as the patient's advance directive; insurance information; history and physicals; identification and demographic information; operative pathology; emergency room report; and test results. Some vendors offer off-site storage of paper records. Storage methods are also changing to include electronic methods and imaging systems.
  
  

What Is a Record?

• Hospitals may decide not to destroy patients' paper records if they feel the records may be needed in the future.stethoscope image by dinostock from Fotolia.com
  
  A record is any "document, book, paper, photograph, map, sound recording or other material, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received pursuant to law or in connection with the transaction of official business," according to the Missouri secretary of state.