Below is the Illinois state statute which controls the amount of money that doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers can charge for copies of medical records provided to the patient or the patient’s attorney for use in personal injury or wrongful death civil cases. Note that there may be other statutes which pertain to workers’ compensation claims, Social Security disability matters, etc.
We update this page when we learn of a new statute or any revision to the statutes. Despite our best efforts we cannot and do not represent that this statute is up-to-date. One type of revision which is especially hard for us to keep track of has to do with cost changes allowed annually by a statute and based on some indexed inflation rate.
We suggest that you read the actual state statute (as opposed to relying upon our brief summary) when there is a link available.
Illinois
Code of Civil Procedure 735 ILCS 5/8-2001(d)
The practitioner shall be reimbursed by the person requesting such records at the time of such copying, for all reasonable expenses, including the costs of independent copy service companies, incurred by the practitioner in connection with such copying not to exceed:
- A $20.00 handling charge for processing the request for copies
- $0.75 per page for the first through 25th pages
- $0.50 cents per page for the 26th through 50th pages
- $0.25 cents per page for all pages in excess of 50
- The charge shall not exceed $1.25 per page for any copies made from microfiche or microfilm
- Actual postage or shipping charge, if any
- The facility or healthcare practitioner may, however, charge for the reasonable cost of all duplication of record material or information that cannot routinely be copied or duplicated on a standard commercial photocopy machine such as X ray films or pictures.
- For electronic records, retrieved from a scanning, digital imaging, electronic information or other digital format in a electronic document, a charge of 50% of the per page charge for paper copies listed above. This per page charge includes the cost of each CD Rom, DVD, or other storage media.
- Records already maintained in an electronic or digital format shall be provided in an electronic format when so requested.
If you are aware of an additional or different medical records copying costs statute which should be posted for this state, please send a link to the relevant statute to Tom Lamb.
Likewise, any clarifications, corrections, or updates regarding the statute shown for this state should be submitted to Tom Lamb.
Please understand that the materials on this web page are for general information purposes only, and is not intended as legal advice.
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