The medical records retrieval process for paralegals

For many personal injury paralegals, medical records retrieval is one of the most time-consuming parts of a case, and the part with the least control. You depend on providers' departments to act, and the time between sending a request and getting records is hard to predict.

Here is the process as it usually runs, and where it tends to go wrong. This is general information, not legal advice. It reflects Utah and federal law as of October 2026; other states differ, and every firm and provider works a little differently.

Stage 1: Intake and authorization

The process starts with the client. You collect the list of providers, get an authorization signed, and confirm that it is complete: correct name, provider, date range, expiration, signature and any required language. Problems here are the most common reason a request comes back, and they are usually visible before the request is sent. See why medical records requests get rejected for the full list.

Stage 2: Routing

Next, each request goes to the right place. Within a single hospital, medical records, billing and imaging may sit with different departments and use different methods, and many providers send requests to a third-party records vendor. In Utah, providers that use a vendor register it with the Division of Professional Licensing, which keeps a public index. Finding the correct department and method for each provider takes calls and notes, and it is easy to send a request to a place that accepts it but never acts on it.

Stage 3: Follow-up

Once a request is out, the work becomes waiting and checking. A typical routine has a status check after a couple of weeks, then an escalation if there is no response, with follow-up letters after that. Under Utah's statute, a provider or records vendor is to send copies to a patient's attorney within 30 days of receiving the request, the fee drops by half after 30 days, and the records are free after 60 (Utah Code § 78B-5-618). The exact schedule is set by your firm, state rules and case deadlines. What matters is that every request has dates attached. There is a worked example in how to follow up on a records request without losing track.

Stage 4: Receipt and review

When records arrive, check them against the request: complete date range, every department, legible pages. Then file them to the matter and update the status, so the team knows what is done and what is still outstanding.

Where the hours go

Across these stages, the time is rarely spent on any one hard task. It goes to redoing requests that were rejected, finding the right department, and remembering to check on requests that went quiet. These are repeatable, checkable steps, which makes them a good fit for software.

That is the idea behind DocHound's medical record request workflow: check the authorization before it goes out, send the request to the right department, and track follow-ups until the records arrive, so your team's time goes to the cases instead of the chasing.