Others buy the data or companies that generate it. Now that medical records are less likely to be paper-based, sharing rather than owning records is becoming the norm. Already, some records in physician offices are just working copies of electronic master files created, maintained and owned by someone else. And as more physicians are employed, fewer will own records. All this distances physicians from their patients and makes it harder for them to hang on to their patients.
Physicians can fight back, to an extent.
The most important thing is to pay attention to what contracts say about medical records. Some spell out that the hospital or network owns the records of contracting physicians. Others stipulate that the group and not the physician owns the records. Such contract provisions must be clarified. Often they can be negotiated or challenged.