03/12/2018

EOB Record Retention

How long are you supposed to keep remits for?

It’s important to remember that and EOB (Explanation of Benefits) is not considered to be a part of the patient medical record. So laws and regulations that apply to medical records would not necessarily apply to financial records. That’s also a good reason to keep EOB’s separate from medical records.

Making EOB retention its own separate, seamless process is a wise choice for any practice, because when it comes to medical record retention, the question of “how long to keep” is a complicated one to answer.

Federal law mandates that a provider keep and retain each record for a minimum of seven years from the date of last service to the patient. For Medicare Advantage patients, it goes up to ten years. Providers must also comply with individual state regulations on record retention (which often differ from the national standards) and their states’ statutes of limitations on malpractice lawsuits.

For IRS audit reasons and caution purposes it may be wise for a provider to retain secure copies of EOB’s and financial records for at least 7 years.