Louisiana law requires health care providers to furnish to a patient, upon written request, copies of the patient’s medical records, including any information related to the patient, which the health care provider has transmitted to any company, agency or person. Generally speaking, the only exception to this requirement is if knowledge of the information contained in a patient’s record could be harmful to him/her. A dentist may require payment of a reasonable copying charge, as per the schedule listed in Chapter 3, Section 318 of the Rules portion of your handbook issued by the State Board of Dentistry. However, a dentist cannot refuse to provide a patient copies of his/her records because the patient owes money to the dentist for treatment received. The patient’s intended use of the records generally does not affect the dentist’s obligation to provide copies either. As noted in the ADA’s Principles of Ethics and Code of Professional Conduct, dentists have an obligation, “on request of either the patient or the patient’s new dentist, to furnish, either gratuitously or for nominal cost, such dental records (including x-rays) or copies or summaries of them…as will be beneficial for the future treatment of that patient.”