Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Discharged Patient, Updox

Maybe I should be asking legal counsel, but perhaps someone here knows... I have some inactive patient in AC, but faxes keep coming in, i.e. lab reports, specialist reports. If I try to upload to AC from Updox, it cannot be done unless the patient is first reactivated in AC (as far as I know). For some reason, AC and Updox must first be restarted after reactivating the patient before the document can be 'sent to EHR'. Needless to say, this is a hassle. I wonder if I am legally required to keep filing these things into AC, or perhaps there is an easier way to go about this.

Our take on this is: If they have been well and truly discharged (not just inactive for some time) then we are not their physician. Someone has sent us protected health information in error. It is treated exactly the same as when the hospital sends us information on a patient that isn't ours. We destroy it and notify them of their error.

There is also a setting in UPDOX that allows you to see inactive patients-Practice Profile-Settings-Show inactive patients. We recently posed that question to the OSMA and this was there response: As long as you have attempted to send the termination letter to the patient, and, since you gave them a 30 day notice, you are under no obligation to keep the hospital report or emergency room report. You should send them back to the hospital with a note and tell them that you no longer have a physician-patient relationship.