Can I use the medical records I previously requested for another match instead of requesting new ones?
Learn the answer to this week's user-submitted question about surrogacy in this week's installment of Ask a Surrogacy Expert! Have a question about surrogacy that you'd like answered? Submit it at https://www.brightfuturesfamilies.com/ask
For gestational carrier medical records, there is a strict policy on the “chain of custody” on how the information is passed along to fertility clinics. Medical records must come directly from professionals to ensure authenticity.
Exceptions for Older Records: Rarely, older records can be accepted directly from the gestational carrier with full disclosure to maintain transparency.
Operational Impact: Re-requesting records may cause slight delays, but Bright Futures Families prioritize client confidence and safety.
Client Communication Focus: Clear communication about record handling reassures clients and promotes trust in the surrogacy agency's process.
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Transcript:
Hey, everyone, it's Jenn with this week's Ask Question, which is, “Can I use medical records that I have previously obtained for another match for my own personal purposes, things like that, instead of you as an agency, having to request new ones?” And the answer is generally no, unfortunately. We really want to make sure that, for lack of a better word, there's a great chain of custody on medical records. So anything that is coming to us that we pass along to an REI, we want to make sure came directly from a medical professional. It's not that we think that you personally are a nefarious doing anything wrong. We just want to make sure that all of those records come directly. There is, every once in a while and always sometimes, a reason that we might make an exception to that, such as if the records are extremely old and you happen to have them on file, at which point we would then pass them along to any medical professionals and let them know that we did not have full custody of them from the start and that they just need to know that it came directly from the gestational carrier and her personal files. Generally, no, we want to make sure that we grab them again ourselves. Obviously, that just takes a little bit of time, but we are willing to do that just to make sure that everybody, REI, intended parents, feel safest as they're moving through this process.