How to request your medical records in South Carolina
You have a federal right to a copy of your own medical records, in South Carolina and everywhere else. Below is how that right works, what South Carolina adds on top of it, and a free letter you can fill out and send.
Your federal right (applies in every state)
Under the HIPAA Privacy Rule (45 CFR 164.524), you can get a copy of your own medical records without giving a reason. A provider must act on your request within 30 days, can take one 30-day extension only with written notice, and can charge only a reasonable, cost-based fee for copying and postage.
What South Carolina adds
- Copy fees
- For records provided electronically, currently up to about 65 cents per page for the first 30 pages and 50 cents per page after, plus a clerical search-and-handling fee up to about $25, capped at about $150 per request (a $200 cap applies to printed pages); these amounts are adjusted annually for inflation.
- Worth knowing
- You cannot be charged the search fee when no record is found, and records must be provided free when you're referred to another provider for continued treatment.
- The law
- S.C. Code § 44-115-80 (Physicians' Patient Records Act)
When South Carolina law and the federal HIPAA rule differ, the one that gives you more access — faster turnaround, lower fee — is the one that applies. This is general information, not legal advice; confirm specifics with your provider's records office.
Your South Carolina records-request letter
Requesting records in South Carolina — common questions
- How do I request my medical records in South Carolina?
- Under your federal right of access (HIPAA, 45 CFR § 164.524), you can get a copy of your own records from any provider in South Carolina. Send a written request — the free letter on this page works — to the provider's Health Information Management or Release of Information office, or use their patient portal if they have one.
- How much can a provider in South Carolina charge for copies of my records?
- For records provided electronically, currently up to about 65 cents per page for the first 30 pages and 50 cents per page after, plus a clerical search-and-handling fee up to about $25, capped at about $150 per request (a $200 cap applies to printed pages); these amounts are adjusted annually for inflation. HIPAA separately caps any fee at a reasonable, cost-based charge for the labor of copying and the postage — whichever protects you more applies.
- Is this records-request letter free?
- Yes. The generator builds a HIPAA records-request letter you can download and print for free. Nothing you type is saved or sent to anyone but you.
What we will never do with your records
This generator runs without an account, and KeptWell itself makes the same promises to every family, regardless of plan or price.
- We won't sell your data.
- Not to advertisers, not to data brokers, not to insurers, not to pharma, not to anyone, in any form, ever.
- We won't train AI models on your records.
- Anthropic (whose Claude model powers KeptWell) is contractually prohibited from training on anything we send them, under a signed Business Associate Agreement.
- We won't lock you in.
- You can export everything in your circle as a ZIP at any time. Cancellation is one click.
Once your South Carolina records arrive, give them a home.
They usually come back as a stack of PDFs or a disc. Upload them to KeptWell and it reads each one, organizes everything by type and date, and lets your whole family ask questions about it. The medical record organizer that does the organizing. Free today.
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More on the product: how it works, the medical record organizer, pricing, and what we do with your data.