In Indiana it is 7 years also. We "catacomb" a chart when a patient transfers records, expires, or has not been here in 3 years. I aggressively inactivate charts in AC so that when I do a search (which I can no longer do because it does not work anymore...I am still not on V5), I do not pick up a lot of patients I know will not be coming in.

Leslie
Hospital Employed Physician Who Misses The Old AC

"It's a good thing for a doctor to have prematurely grey hair and itching piles. It makes him appear to know more than he does and gives him an expression of concern which the patient interprets as being on his behalf. "