Where to Actually Get Your Records

You have the right to your records. Now here's how to actually get them into your hands, from easiest to most thorough.

Start with your patient portal

If you have a portal login, start there. It's free and it's instant. Log in, download what's there, and upload it to myStoria. Screenshots work too if that's faster for you. Anything you can see, you can capture.

This is the quickest way in. But it's worth knowing it's usually not the whole story.

Know that the portal is only the surface

Here's what most people never find out: your patient portal often shows a fraction of what's actually in your chart.

The portal usually gives you the highlights. Recent results, visit summaries, a medication list. The full record is a different thing entirely. The complete notes, the nursing notes, the detailed account of what actually happened during a visit or a stay often live only in the full chart, held by the records department. People request that full chart and are surprised by how much more is in it than their portal ever showed.

The portal is the summary. The full record lives with the records department, and you can request that too. If you want the complete picture ...