I also ran into this issue because I absorbed another MD's practice. (I was using an EMR since residency.)I have found the old paper charts to be minimally useful at best. For the most part, you are saving old charts for medico-legal reasons. We did scan a lot of the recent charts, but I too recommend being very selective about this. Most of the old charts are now in boxes, sorted by alphabet so we can occasionally (once per month) find an old chart for a lawyer or insurance company. Generally, patients do not care about their old charts. Now many of them are coming up on 7 years old, and they can be shredded in our state. (Or 21 years old). There really isn't much reason to scan the old charts into a file - you just have to store the paper for at most 7 years (in our state)and then shred/burn. YMMV: I think California is 25 years!
