I was recently involved in a lawsuit because of a car accident that I got in. The accident wasn’t my fault and my attorney had to look at all of my medical records in order to prove that the medical problems I was having after the accident occurred were not pre-existing conditions. In other words, the accident caused me quite a bit of medical problems that weren’t there before. I went to my nurse’s office and asked for copies of all of my medical records. The records department informed me that the original copies of my medical records were the property of the physician’s office who created the documents initially. In other words, even if the record is all about me and my personal information and medical history, the document itself belongs to the physician’s office and they would not allow me to have access to it! However, I had been reading up on HIPAA risk assessment, HIPAA risk analysis, and HIPAA risk management rules and regulations and I was well aware that HIPAA law now provides patients more control over their health information than ever before. I knew that I had the right to have a look at my original medical records, even if they were still there in the nurse’s office. I also knew that I had the right to obtain copies of the original records. Some nurse’s offices will charge a fee for copying your records according to the HIPAA risk management plan, especially if they have to copy things such as x-rays or MRI’s. Thankfully for me, my medical records prior to the car accident were very minimal and I only ended up having to pay a small fee for having them copied so I could hand them over to my lawyer.