Who owns my medical records - the doctor or patient? Who owns my medical records - the doctor or patient?
The Privacy Act gives patients a general right of access to information held about them.
It does not necessarily give a patient the right of ownership of that information.
As a general rule the doctor who holds patient information owns and controls it. Doctors retain their legal rights in relation to copyright of their own work.
Access to this information is a separate issue. Included in the health information a doctor often holds about a patient are diagnostic notes, perhaps a medical protocol tailored to a patient's particular needs, letters written by the doctor, clinical notes taken about the patient, as to which the doctor owns the intellectual property rights.
The copyright of specialists' reports held on a GP's file belongs to the specialist who wrote the report.
The way in which the doctor takes notes, records patient management and so forth form part of the doctor's intellectual property.
The High Court case of Breen v Williams (1995) 186 CLR 71 confirmed a doctor's right in this regard. The Privacy Act is subject to existing law, and that includes parliament made law as well as court made law.
Thus, the granting of access to patient's of their medical information does not necessarily give patient's the right to deal with the information as they wish.
It restricts doctors as to the way in which they are to use and disclose the patient's information, but also a patient's right to access their health information may be subject to restrictions as to its reproduction and use subject to the doctor's permission.
In practice this would be hard to enforce or explain, and there is probably little reason to do it.
However, in relation to medical reports it is important, because there is a question of ensuring that the doctor's opinion is not reproduced by someone for commercial purposes without the doctor's permission, and there is the question of the right to charge a fee for reports.
There is nothing to stop a doctor from asserting copyright over the material that indicates that the doctors' consent is required for further reproduction of the material.
However, the doctor should ensure that this does not breach his/her ethical duty, by preventing relevant material being made available to another doctor or medical treatment team member.