How to Send All Your Medical Records to a New Doctor

Call or message the new office and ask three things: what do you need, in what form, and how should I send it? Then collect your records from every place you were treated. Offices differ, so what they tell you beats any general list, including this one.

For a first visit with a specialist, our checklist of what to bring goes with this page.

Steps

1. Ask the new office what it wants. Ask whether it wants everything or only recent lab results, imaging reports and visit notes for the problem you are seeing them about. The National Institute on Aging also suggests asking for the new patient or medical history form ahead of time, so you can fill it out at home.
2. List where your records are. Write down every clinic, hospital, lab and imaging center that has records about you, with rough dates. Give the new doctor the names and addresses of your former doctors. The National Institute on Aging says the new doctor will ask you to sign a release form so the office can request your records.
3. Try each portal first. If a place has a patient portal, see whether you can download records there. Our guide to downloading lab results from MyChart shows the general steps.
4. Otherwise ask the records office. Ask for an electronic copy and say what form you want. HHS says you can ask for a form and format and the provider must give it to you that way if it can readily produce it. The 30-day response clock starts when the provider receives your request.
5. Decide who sends it. You can request your own copy and forward it, or you can ask the provider in writing to send it to the new office. HHS says that request must be signed and must name the recipient and where to send the records. A 2020 court decision (Ciox Health v. Azar) narrowed the rule for sending records to a third party, and HHS says its fee limits apply to your request for your own copy, not to a request to send records to someone else. If cost matters, ask for your own copy first and forward it yourself.
6. Send it the way the new office asks. Ask whether it wants a portal upload, a secure message, a fax, or a disc. If you plan to email, read the FAQ below first.
7. Check that it arrived. Call a few days before the visit and ask whether the office has everything.

What to send to a specialist

Ask the specialist's office. In general, recent lab results, imaging reports, a list of your medicines, and visit or hospital discharge summaries are the usual things to ask about. If your records are at several health systems, label each file with where it came from and its date.

What to do with the files

A stack of files from several places is slow to read. Phi Longevity PRISM can turn the lab results into a one-page Care Team Brief with dates, trends and the guideline behind each flag. You can print it or save it as a PDF, and send or bring it before the first visit. See the one-page summary template if you would rather fill one in by hand.

Start free: build your Care Team Brief →

What Phi Longevity PRISM does not do

It does not send records into a new office's record system, and it does not replace the records the new office asks for. It reads lab results today; medicines, diagnoses and allergies are not imported yet. It does not diagnose, and your doctor decides what you need.