5.50I – Fraudulent Concealment of Medical Records

5.50I FRAUDULENT CONCEALMENT OF MEDICAL RECORDS

Upon request, physicians have a duty to provide a patient or a patient’s representative with a true, unaltered and complete copy of all treatment records for any treatment or services rendered. Corrections or changes to entries may be made only where the change is clearly identified as such, dated and initialed by the person making the change. In fact, it is against the law in this State to alter medical records with the intent to deceive or mislead anyone.

The elements that must be established by a plaintiff in a claim for Fraudulent Concealment of Medical Records are:

1. that the defendant had a legal obligation to disclose evidence in connection with an existing or pending litigation;
2. that the evidence was material to the litigation;
3. that the plaintiff could not reasonably have obtained access to the evidence from another source;
4. that the defendant intentionally withheld, altered or destroyed the evidence with the purpose to disrupt the litigation; and
5. that the plaintiff was damaged in the underlying action by having to rely on an evidential record that did not contain the evidence defendant concealed.