I agree with Chris. Plus, my CMA drills me daily about this. Well, weekly. It screws up her vaccine inventory. I am not sure how it works with importing files, as we use a 3rd party program, but if the patient left the practice even six months ago, and we get a consult note or lab, etc., if they are still active I will review it and may, embarrassingly call the patient to have them come in or do something like a follow-up lab. With the patient inactive, it won't name the file or import it. Therefore, I check demographics and see the transfer.
Generally, it is easiest to notify Health Information Systems and ask them to remove us as the primary. We send the consult note back to the consultant. We call the lab to let them know they were sent to the wrong doctor.
We could just forward everything to the new provider, but we have no way of knowing if they are still there, and it could cause HIPAA issues.
If anyone, especially Chris, has some ideas as to what to do with records coming in after a patient is no longer in his or her practice, please add your thoughts to the thread.
Thanks.
