How best to request digital copies of xrays and catscans from my hospital?

May 13, 2009 6:51 PM

I would like to request my hospital send me either via email or dvd any CT Scans and x-rays from the hospital and/or Diagnostics dept. or my Primary Care Physician, in digital form. Best practices? (no pun...)

Please let me know if you've done this before and have any experience doing so. Is in-person better than via the internet? Should I make the request of the Diagnostics dept. or my Primary Care Physician? I'm simply curious about best or most used method, since this is my first experience with a hospital in 17 years. The whole hospital process is fairly confusing for me these days.

posted by prodevel to health & fitness (7 comments total)

In my experience with non-hospital imaging labs, you simply go to the lab and request them. They may or may not want you to sign a request form first. Then generally they ask you to pick up the copies after 2-3 days.

They are allowed to charge a reasonable fee for this, so be sure to ask what it is.

Given yours were done in a hospital, I'd start by calling the hospital's radiology department.
posted by CrayDrygu at 6:56 PM on May 13

I work at a major research/teaching hospital. You should contact the hospital's medical records department - call them and tell them you're looking for old radiology films. They may handle it directly, or they may have a separate department (ours is called the 'File Room') for films. You may have to ask if they handle Dr So-and-so's old files; they likely will, if your old PCP was part of the hospital (directly, I mean, you saw her there, not 'was affiliated') or you had your radiology done within the hospital itself.

My hospital does not, as a rule, e-mail medical information to patients. We aren't set up from a security standpoint to do that. We burn things to CD, if I recall correctly, although it might be DVD. Generally CD is used for maximum compatibility among other hospitals/doctors. (It's still not 100%) Due to the tendency of medical information to get lost/stolen in the mail, as well as the OH GOD slowness of the internal mail system, we don't generally send disks out and ask that you pick up disks by hand. You might have to send in a release of information, or you might be able to just do one once you're there to pick up the disks, I'm not sure. Again, in my hospital, not electronic.

We have digitized most, if not all, the images we have retained. However, very old films may not have been retained, depending on the retention policies of your hospital. (Frankly, some old x-rays might have crumbled, since they're somewhat fragile.) YMMV of what remains if it's been, as you say, 17 years.

(Oh, and as for the fees? You might be able to get around them by saying you're looking to hand-carry them to your new doctor, especially if medical records and radiology are separate.)
posted by cobaltnine at 7:01 PM on May 13

Great advice so far, cobalt and cray. The records are only 3 weeks old, by the way. I'll probably contact Radiology/Diagnostics so far... I'm fairly confident my hospital is a teaching one as well.
posted by prodevel at 7:09 PM on May 13

i'll throw in that within a few days the medical records dept is where its at. ive moved across country several times and my wife has copious medical records. on more than one occasion we had to procure and take them. the folks in records are usually happy for a pleasant visitor and happy to help. good luck.
posted by chasles at 7:10 PM on May 13

Just as an FYI - you'll probably receive everything in DICOM format (not necessarily xrays - see the end of my comment). The cd/dvd may come with a standalone DICOM viewer. If not, I suggest Osirix for OSX or ezDICOM for Windows. And while more and more modern hospitals are using PACS for digital xray archiving and storage, there is a chance that you'll receive physical copies of the xrays.

/former systems manager for medical imaging group
posted by zerokey at 7:50 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]

I just had to do this for xrays and an MRI - the imaging department of my hospital put them all on a disc, complete with viewer, as zerokey described - at no extra cost to me.
posted by chez shoes at 8:04 PM on May 13

Well that went much more smoothly than I thought it might.

I called Radiology who transferred me to the Film and Imaging (not listed on the website) who promptly and without charge offered to mail me all my imaging with viewer.

Thanks, everyone.
posted by prodevel at 5:43 AM on May 14