N.M. Admin. Code § 16.21.12.10 - RETENTION, MAINTENANCE AND DESTRUCTION OF MEDICAL RECORDS
A. Improper
management of medical records, including failure to maintain timely, accurate,
legible and complete medical records constitutes unprofessional conduct under
the board's rules adopted pursuant to Subsection H of 61-8-11 NMSA 1978.
Podiatric physicians must maintain and make available upon request a written
copy of their policy or their employer's policy for medical record retention,
maintenance and destruction.
B.
Written medical record policy shall include:
(1) responsible entity/agent name of contact
to obtain records or request transfer of records, telephone number and mailing
address;
(2) how the records can be
obtained or transferred;
(3) how
long the records will be maintained before they are destroyed; and
(4) cost of obtaining copies of records, and
of recovering records/transferring records.
C. Electronic medical record policy shall
include:
(1) responsible entity/agent name of
contact to obtain records or request transfer of records, telephone number and
mailing address;
(2) how the
records can be obtained or transferred;
(3) how long the records will be maintained
before destroyed;
(4) a data backup
plan, disaster recovery plan and storage which ensures retrievability into
reasonably usable form on a timely basis upon any request; and
(5) transfer of data via electronic file with
appropriate safeguards to ensure patient confidentiality.
D. Podiatric physicians must retain medical
records that they own for at least seven years. Medical records for patients
who are minors must be retained for at least two years beyond the date that the
patient is 18 years old.
E.
Podiatric physicians shall retain medical billing information for at least two
years after the date of last treatment.
F. A log must be kept of all charts
destroyed, including the patient's name and date of record
destruction.
G. If conversion of
hard copies of medical records occurs to electronic format, the hard copy shall
be retained by the physician for a minimum of 30 days after electronic transfer
has occurred.
H. Destruction of
medical records must be such that confidentiality is maintained. Records must
be destroyed by shredding, incinerating (where permitted) or by other method of
permanent destruction, including purging of medical records from a computer
hard drive, server hard drive or other computer media or disk in accordance
with existing practices for data deletion then available.
Notes
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