After every visit, keep your own copy of your medical records, test reports and imaging

Cost

Free. The hospital may charge a copying fee at cost under the rules, and its fee schedule must be public. The hard part is remembering to get a copy after every visit.

What you get

The regulations expressly list reading and copying medical records as a patient's right. The scope covers all materials, including outpatient records, inpatient notes, lab reports, medical imaging, surgery and anesthesia records, pathology materials and medical bills. Changing hospitals, getting a second doctor to look again, filing a commercial insurance claim and any real dispute all rest on these.

Notes

Copying is handled by a department the hospital designates; you don't need to ask the doctor. For the list of what you can copy, just read Article 16 of the Regulations on the Prevention and Handling of Medical Disputes (《医疗纠纷预防和处理条例》). First come outpatient records, inpatient notes, temperature charts, doctor's orders, lab reports and imaging. Then surgery and anesthesia records, pathology materials, nursing records and itemized medical bills. Once you have them, file them in one folder in date order. The most important items are the discharge summary, the surgical record, the pathology report and the key images. For a chronic illness, record each round of measurements in the same notebook; see §16.

Evidence grade

A : Specific numbers from meta-analyses, large cohorts or randomized trials; for law and policy, the statute or official text.

Sources

1. State Council (2018). Regulations on the Prevention and Handling of Medical Disputes (State Council Order No. 701) [in Chinese], Article 16: "Patients have the right to read and copy their outpatient medical records, inpatient notes, temperature charts, doctors' orders, lab sheets (test reports), medical imaging materials, consent forms for special examinations, surgical consent forms, surgery and anesthesia records, pathology materials, nursing records, medical expenses, and all other materials that the health authority of the State Council specifies as part of the medical record." "Where a patient asks to copy medical record materials, the medical institution shall provide a copying service and stamp the copies with a certification mark ... may charge a cost fee, and the fee standard shall be made public." "If the patient has died, the patient's close relatives may read and copy the medical record materials in accordance with these Regulations." Article 15: "No organization or individual may tamper with, forge, conceal, destroy, or seize medical record materials." https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/2018-08/31/content_5318057.htm
2. National Health and Family Planning Commission and National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine (2013). Provisions on the Management of Medical Records in Medical Institutions (2013 edition) [in Chinese]: a medical institution "shall designate a department or full-time or part-time staff to be responsible for accepting applications to copy medical record materials", and the copying is done in the presence of the applicant and stamped with a certification mark. http://www.gov.cn/gongbao/content/2014/content_2600084.htm

Translated from the Chinese original. Original book, section 24, tip 5. This section is about health and medicines. It is general information, not a substitute for a doctor’s diagnosis or prescription. Content may be out of date and rules differ by place. When you actually deal with an agency, a doctor or a court, follow what local officials, doctors and lawyers tell you. Disclaimer