Transfer or Copy of Medical File
For patients who will be attending the clinic for Skin Cancer Medicine only, obtaining a copy of your medical file is probably not neccessary.
For patients looking for iSpot Clinic to take over your General Practice care, it is strongly recommended that you arrange a copy of your file to be sent to the clinic, unless you are fit and well, and you take no or minimal medication and have had little surgery or medical problems in the past.
Generally speaking there are three ways of transferring your medical information.
A Digital Copy
This is the strongly preferred option, particularly if the clinic sending the notes uses the same software as iSpot Clinic - 'Best Practice.'
The sending clinic can export the notes to CD in a format which means that ALL your clinical data appears in the clinic's files properly organised and without risk of a mistake in re-typing your data.
If your clinic uses a different software package it would be ideal for iSpot Clinic to liase with them first about the best way of sending your notes.
The clinic sending the file is entitled to charge you a reasonable fee for this service, it would be unusual for this to exceed $30 as this is generally a quick and convenient process for the clinic sending the data.
Full Paper Notes
Your clinic may arrange to print out all they have on you, using many - often hundreds - of pages of paper to do so.
As iSpot Clinic stores your records electronically, these pages are then scanned and turned back into an electronic PDF file in your notes.
This is less than ideal as the PDF file is not fully integrated with your notes, and key data like medications and allergies do not get automatically completed.
The sending clinic is entitled to charge you a reasonable fee for the time and stationary used to print and post these files.
A Summary
Many clinics will arrange to send over a simple 1-2 page summary containing your major coded medical conditions, your current medications, allergies and vaccinations.
These summaries usually won't include:
- specialist letters
- referral letters to specialists
- workcover forms or details
- insurance medicals
- narcotic medication permits
- test results, xrays etc
To download a form to assist you in transferring a copy of your medical file, please click here.
