How to request your medical records in South Dakota
You have a federal right to a copy of your own medical records, in South Dakota and everywhere else. Below is how that right works, what South Dakota 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 Dakota adds
- Copy fees
- For paper copies, no more than $10 for the first 10 pages and 33 cents per additional page; for electronic copies, no more than 25 cents per page. Printed medical images are capped at $10 and images on disc/USB at $15, plus actual postage and any tax.
- The law
- S.D. Codified Laws § 36-2-16.4
When South Dakota 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 Dakota records-request letter
Requesting records in South Dakota — common questions
- How do I request my medical records in South Dakota?
- 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 Dakota. 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 Dakota charge for copies of my records?
- For paper copies, no more than $10 for the first 10 pages and 33 cents per additional page; for electronic copies, no more than 25 cents per page. Printed medical images are capped at $10 and images on disc/USB at $15, plus actual postage and any tax. 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.
Records rules in another state?
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 Dakota 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.