Getting copies of your MRI and CT scan images

Ask the radiology department or medical records office where the scan was done for copies of your MRI and CT scan images, not just the report. You'll usually sign a release form. Copies often come on a CD or flash drive with a viewer, and some facilities can send images straight to another hospital over the internet.

Both. HHS says HIPAA's right of access covers x-rays and other diagnostic images in your record, not only the written report. You can ask for them in the form and format you want, if the facility can readily produce it that way. HHS adds that the large size of some image files can change how they are delivered. You can ask for the report and the images together, so the next doctor has the radiologist's reading and the pictures it describes.

Usually a disc or a flash drive, sometimes a download or a direct transfer. A 2019 study reported by RSNA found a mailed CD was the only format every hospital surveyed offered, and email or portal access was an option at only about 4 to 6 percent of them.

DICOM is the standard format for medical images. A DICOM file holds the images along with details about you and the scan that made them. The DICOM Standard's own site says the great majority of discs given to patients are DICOM CDs, and they often include a viewer program. You don't have to use that viewer if your computer already has one.

You could start by asking the new hospital how it wants to receive them: on a disc you bring, or sent electronically by the place that did the scan. Then you can ask the imaging facility to send them that way, and give it the name of the hospital and the doctor you're seeing. One limit to know: per HHS, a federal court in 2020 narrowed the right to have a facility send records to a third party, so it now covers only electronic copies of electronic records. Patient pricing caps don't cover those transfers, so you could ask about cost here too. You may want to keep a copy for yourself either way. RadiologyInfo, from the Radiological Society of North America and the American College of Radiology, suggests getting a hard copy on a CD or flash drive just to be safe.

Images follow the same HIPAA clock as other records: the facility has 30 calendar days from your request, plus one extension of up to 30 more days if it tells you in writing why and when. It may charge a reasonable, cost-based fee, which can include copying labor, the CD or USB drive, and postage. It can't charge for the time spent searching for or retrieving your images. You could ask what the copy will cost when you request it.

Your name and date of birth, the type of scan and the body part (for example, an MRI of the brain), the date and the place it was done, and whether you want the images, the report or both. You can say how you want them delivered. If they should go straight to another hospital, add that hospital's name and your doctor's name, and sign the release form the facility uses.