225 ILCS 115/25.17
By: Mary Tiefenbrunn, for the IAWF’s Compliance Tip series.
Many shelters, rescues, and animal control agencies are providing important services to pet owners by hosting “pop-up” low-cost spay/neuter clinics, vaccine clinics, or preventive care veterinary clinics.
Often these clinics will be staffed with licensed veterinarians who are either generously volunteering their time or being hired on an ad-hoc basis. In the planning stages for clinics, it’s likely the veterinarian and the agency will establish a system for recording patient information and treatment details. But they might forget to cover the important detail of who will be responsible for retaining those records after the clinic, and for how long.
The Illinois Veterinary Medicine and Surgery Practice Act provides direction on what type of information needs to be contained in a veterinary record and how long such records need to be kept by the provider. (See 225 ILCS 115/25.17)
Sub-Section 25.17(c) of the Act states that “each person who provides veterinary medical services shall maintain appropriate patient records” and that the “patient records are the property of the practice and the practice owner.” Sub-Section (d) states that “Patient records must be maintained for a minimum of 5 years from the date of the last known contact with a patient.”
Neither of these subsections specifically address the scenario of a pop-up clinic and a veterinarian working as a volunteer or independent contractor.
The Act is clear that the medical records are the property of the “veterinary practice.” This makes practical sense, given that many veterinary clinics employ multiple veterinarians, and veterinarians themselves may work for multiple practices during their careers. When a client receives services from a veterinary practice, it pays the practice and the practice should have the responsibility for supplying the records to the pet owner if requested at a future date.
While a shelter or non-profit agency might not consider itself a “veterinary practice,” if it is hosting a clinic to provide veterinary services, it makes practical sense that the shelter should take responsibility for storing the veterinary records for the service provided. If a client of the clinic needs those records at a later date, it will be much easier to contact the hosting agency than to track down the individual veterinarian who provided the service.
At the very least, shelters and the veterinarians working with them should have a conversation about retention of records during the planning phase, so that this important aspect of patient care and compliance with law is not over-looked.
