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Setting New Standards for a New Profession – Your Chance to Help
As announced to AdvoConnection’s members last week, we have been working on a prescribed process for advocates who find it necessary to terminate their work with a client – in effect, to “divorce” that client, professionally, legally, and with the least amount of difficulty for both parties. (Members will find access to that protocol in this coming week’s Monday Member Mail.) One step in the process is the recommendation about sharing the notes you’ve kept with the client you’re divorcing, and the question about whether or not you, as the professional patient advocate, should be keeping those notes after you have terminated the relationship with the client, and if so, for what period of time. (Please note – I’m talking about the notes and records YOU keep – not medical records which are being kept by their medical providers. You may choose to keep those, too – but here we focus only on your own notes.) So that’s the question – how long, if at all, should private health advocates keep those notes? [polldaddy poll=6098310] How long should a private professional health or patient advocate keep client notes at the end of the business relationship? Medical providers, including doctors and hospitals, have state laws that govern how long they must keep a patient’s records. There’s a range of time frames – from six years to 10 years, or sometimes longer depending on the patient’s ongoing treatment needs. Pediatricians are usually required to keep records until a patient turns 19. But in all cases, the amount of time is set in stone so there are no questions about keeping them. So who is going to create the standard for record retention for private health and patient advocates? You are! Since you, the readers of this blog, are the people doing the work, you are going to be the ones to decide – early in this profession – what makes sense. Maybe you’ve never thought about it before. Maybe the topic has been covered in a class or workshop you have taken. This is your opportunity to share your opinion and be…