Ways to Get Medical Records for Free

Everyone has medical records from the moment they are born, and these are kept for each time they go back to the doctor. You can get your complete medical records from your doctor for a fee, though there are ways to get all of your medical records for free.

Ask New Doctor

• While you will be charged in most cases to receive your medical records from your past doctors, your current or new doctor can request your medical records for free. If you ask your new doctor to do this, which they probably will need anyway to have record of your past medical history, also ask if he can make copies of your medical records for you, which should take a nurse in the office a few minutes to do at the copy machine. If you have a good relationship with your doctor, he shouldn't charge you for this favor.

OpenEMR

• OpenEMR is a free medical practice management, electronic medical records, prescription writing and medical billing application which is donated through charity money and software. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of medical records through this service, which can be downloaded for free, so it is worth checking out to see if your medical records have been listed on the service. Records are added all the time, so it is worth it to check back into the free site regularly. The service works with all types of computers.

Google Health

• Google is now offering a free online medical records service, which allows its users to create an online medical health profile. As it is a relatively new service, these medical records are being gathered and entered into the system as Google partners with companies like Longs Drugs, Medco, CVS Caremark Group and Quest Diagnostics. Once users have made their health profile, they can decide who can have access and see their records.