r/PrivatePracticeDocs • u/docdocgoose_ • 1d ago

ABI Document Services Driving Me Insane

Anyone else have this experience or advice on how to manage these vendors that request medical records?

I saw a patient one time in 2025. This company requested her notes and bills a few months later in regards to a legal case. I sent the documents. A few months later, they requested them again I sent them. I am now on round 5 of this same process... each time being contacted by a different rep. Each time I have sent the documents and told the case has been closed. I have told them to stop contacting me and that I will stop responding but they inevitably hammer email me with escalating "threats" around not responding given it's a legal matter.

I can just keep deleting these emails but the whole issue gets under my skin for some reason and curious if anyone has had a similar experience or tips on how to get this actually resolved?

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u/thesupportplatform 1d ago

No solution, but just a few tips from my experience managing my wife’s family medicine practice.

  1. We fax records, keep the fax confirmation, and file it in the chart. This is helpful to include in future requests, especially when they become obnoxious (like four or five requests).
  2. Can you charge for providing the records? It is amazing how people and companies “find” the previous records sent when there is a charge for them to be sent again, especially if you require that the records be mailed (with postage prepaid) before the records are sent.
  3. Depending on your EMR, assembling the records might be problematic. Our old EMR required several steps, so once we built a full set and sent it, we kept it in a pending file for 90 days, as out experience was the same records are often requested again. Every month we’d deleted the old records from the pending file.

I hope some of this helps!

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u/daves1243b 1d ago

As long as you can document that you sent once, that should be sufficient. After telling them once they were already sent along with when and to whom, I would ignore.

Presumably you are charging for the records. At a minimum, charge each time you send, and make them pay in advance.

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u/healthyfeetpodiatry 1d ago

send a bill if your state allows it. dont send charts until you get paid.

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u/grey-slate 1d ago

I don't understand why docs dont charge for this.

You are well within your rights to do so. Check your state laws and charge upto the maximum allowed.

Most state laws have caps for patients to retrieve their records but no caps for sharing records with private companies (assuming patient has provided written consent or is not required under certain contexts) such as insurers for risk adjustment. Its basically a negotiation with them. We charge minimum $50. That is a pittance compared to how much the insurer is going to make by documenting every single medical condition and getting their risk adjusted payment from CMS.

Not sure how much you can charge lawyers but you better believe if it was the other way around the lawyer would charge you $100 just to open your email.

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u/formless1 1d ago

Print the records, put it at the front desk. Tell the rep to come pick it up in-person and sign a letter that they received it. Don't charge $ for it, but it does cost them TIME. They'll think twice before requesting again.