25 Apr 10 Your Blood Test Results at LabCorp

Your blood test results belong to you under federal law. I received an email from Mike about his daughter and their problems with getting copies of blood test results from LabCorp. You can read it below.

Feel free to post this complaint about Labcorp on your website:

My daughter had blood work done that was ordered by her doctor in the summer of 2009. Early 2010, she has been referred to a specialist who wanted all of her previous records including blood test results. I didn’t have any problem obtaining results from all other tests performed by the hospital. The doctor that originally ordered the blood tests has retired and left a contact for medical records requests. I didn’t have any success with the referred place so I contacted LabCorp directly and they told me that by law, they could not give me or my daughter the lab results. They told me that only the doctor that ordered the tests could access the results.

I paid for these tests in full. These are my records, not the doctors. I walked right in the hospital and got all the other results with no problems. The hospital told me that there is no law preventing a person from obtaining their own medical records. I will never voluntarily use LabCorp again. I recommend that if your doctor takes blood for tests, ask them what lab they use. If they use LabCorp, ask them if there is another option. If they write a prescription for tests, take prescription to your local hospital to get the lab work done. Be sure to check to see if the hospital is on your insurance’s network.

Mike F from Amarillo, TX

If you’ve had blood tests and the results are available, you can request a copy of the results. All you have to do is ask for it. It’s your right to get copies of the blood test results from the doctor, LabCorp or medical facility who administered the blood test. The federal law that allows you to ask for and receive copies of your health records is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, also known as HIPAA. After you request copies of your blood test results, the law states that the medical facility has 30 days to give them to you. Labs may ask you to sign a permission form before releasing them but as I understand HIPAA, they have to provide it to you.

In Mike’s daughter’s case, LabCorp failed to provide the records and claimed that the law prohibited them from providing copies of the lab test results. If anyone knows what law they are referring to, please let us know by posting a comment to this post. I spoke to various lawyers about this issue and they all told me the same thing, “Your lab test results are medical records that belong to you under HIPAA.” There are laws that require medical consultation in reference to certain test results but in Mike’s daughter’s case, the results requested were old records that had already been provided to the doctor. A word of advise to Mike is that you contact the Medical Board in your state about the custodian of the records for your retired doctor. They will make sure that you get the records that the doctor turned over to them. You should also tell them about LabCorp’s refusal to provide you the records. I’m sure that there is a state licensing agency that wants to know all about it.

Reader's Comments

Nicole | 25 Jun 2010 6:20 pm
Health and Safety Code section 123148 requires the health care professional who requested the test be performed to provide a copy of the results to the patient, if requested either orally or in writing. When the patient requests his/her lab results, the health care provider should provide the results to the patient within a “reasonable” time period after the results are received by the provider. Depending on the results of the tests, some physicians may want the patient to schedule an appointment to review and discuss the results and any follow-up testing or treatment that might be required.

The test results CANNOT be released by the lab performing the test and must be released by the provider requesting the test(s).
ba | 21 Sep 2010 2:54 am
Basically there are too many obstructive laws in the US, too many idiot greed heads, and too few service oriented companies. We are screwed, better to be somewhere else.
Wanda | 29 Sep 2010 11:24 pm
Last week, Labcorp sent me a bill from work done in Jan of this year. Can you believe a real business would wait that long to send out a bill? I wonder if I can wait that long to pay since I did not expect the bill at that time.

LabCorp has got to have the Nastiest, Rudest-Looking Bill that I have ever seen. It does not look like a professional lab company. It looks like something from a sleezy credit collection company.

I had blood drawn at one of their places. I felt like I was sitting in the floor at an indigent center. People standing everywhere with very few places to sit. Super hot and miserable room. I got so tired that I ended up sitting on their nasty floor. Very low class-looking place.

The test they ran do not look right. Something was very off. I am sure I will figure it out since I used to work in a clinical lab. I have a very bad feeling about these folks and do not feel comfortable with their work.
tnt | 30 Sep 2010 11:38 am
Wanda,

I sounds like your insurance didn’t pay for the test. Possibly it was coded incorrectly by either the dr’s office or labcorp data entry.

Ask them to send you a copy of the laboratory requistion. They’ll say they can’t do this but they can…it jus takes time. Billing people get measured by how much money they bring in. Do not pay until you make sure the billing coding was done appropriately to cover the test ordered.

I agree that labcorp is a filthy place. I work in one of the labs and the floors only get cleaned when there is an inspection…it disgusting, dusty, and grimy. They use illegal aliens to clean who don’t speak english and you can’t talk to them about what needs cleaning.

As for your lab result…I see specimens mixed up all the time. NO one cares as long as the result gets out on time. I would have another lab test you blood. I don’t trust any result coming out of this sweatshop.