Law Firm Claims Midwest ROI Overcharged for Medical Records Requests

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A Chicago law firm claims in a proposed class action that Midwest ROI, Inc. has overcharged for copies of patient medical records.

Per the lawsuit out of Cook County Circuit Court, the information management company has charged fees for copies of medical records in excess of the amounts allowed by the Illinois Inspection of Hospital Records Act. The case claims the defendant routinely breaks up single requests for medical records into multiple requests and assesses separate handling fees on each. Moreover, separating the requests allows the defendant to charge the highest per-page rate for records that would otherwise warrant a lower rate under Illinois law, according to the suit.

Midwest ROI contracts with health care providers and practitioners to store medical records and respond to requests for copies of such made by attorneys, insurance companies, patients and other individuals and entities, according to the case. The suit explains that Midwest ROI is prohibited from charging fees in excess of the legally allowable limit for producing requested copies of patients’ medical records, which, according to the state’s Hospital Records Act, include but are not limited to “those relating to the diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, history, charts, pictures and plates, kept in connection with the treatment of such patient.”

Per the case, the Hospital Records Act specifies that fees charged in connection with providing copies of medical records shall not exceed a $20 handling charge for processing the request and, for paper copies, $0.75 per page for the first 25 pages, $0.50 per page for the 26^th through 50^th pages, and $0.25 for all pages in excess of 50.

The lawsuit alleges, however, that the defendant has exceeded the law’s fee limitations by assessing multiple handling charges for a single records request. 

The plaintiff law firm says it submitted in January 2021 a single request for a personal injury client’s medical records and bills and received two separate invoices for, respectively, “medical records” and “medical bills.” The next month, the defendant again separated a records request into two requests, each with their own handling charge, the suit claims.

Per the case, Midwest ROI had “no legal basis” on which to double charge the plaintiff for its medical records requests given “medical records” and “medical bills” both constitute “patient records” as defined under the Illinois Hospital Records Act.

The suit further alleges that the defendant’s unlawful practice allowed the company to charge more per page than the allowable limit. 

“By splitting up Plaintiff’s various requests into multiple requests and ‘resetting’ the number of pages it provides, Defendant wrongly bills some of the records at a higher rate than it is otherwise allowed to bill,” the complaint expounds. “For example, under Defendant’s wrongful practice, it may treat fifty pages of records as being provided pursuant to ‘two’ requests instead of one, thus applying the highest charge allowed for pages 1-25 for all fifty pages.”

The lawsuit looks to represent all individuals and entities who, within the applicable statute of limitations period, paid a fee to the defendant for patient medical records in excess of the statutory maximum and/or paid multiple records request fees to the defendant relating to a single records request.

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