Ciox Fee for Futile Medical Records Search Upheld

Ciox Health LLC is allowed under Missouri law to charge a basic search fee for the “search and retrieval” of medical records, even when the search doesn’t produce any records, the Eighth Circuit said Thursday.

It’s a similar to the result reached by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in December, where Ciox was held not liable for overcharging Tennessee patients for records processing.

Ciox is one of the largest medical-records providers in the country, used by three out of every five hospitals.

The Missouri law doesn’t dictate what a health-care provider “must” or “shall” do to ...