Preparing Your Records

A physician cannot say anything meaningful about your situation without your actual medical records. Not a summary, not a phone description — the documents themselves.

For most people this is the hardest and slowest part of the process, and it has almost nothing to do with us. It depends on hospitals, imaging centers, and clinics that hold your information and have their own procedures for releasing it.

You do not need everything before you start. Send what you have. We will tell you what is still missing, and the physician decides whether what exists is enough to form an opinion — that judgment is theirs, not ours, and not this page’s.

What helps, but is not required to start

These make the review better. None of them should delay you. Send what you can get; send the rest later if it exists.

• Molecular or genomic testing, if it was done. These are often issued separately from the main pathology report and are easy to overlook.
• Imaging files themselves (the DICOM files, usually on a CD or DVD from the radiology department). The physician prefers these over the written report when they are available — but they are not needed to begin.
• Operative notes from any surgery.
• Radiation therapy summaries.
• Chemotherapy administration records.
• Hospital discharge summaries.
• Laboratory trends — not one result, but how your blood work has moved over time.
• Any additional historical records you happen to hold.

How recent does it need to be

There is no fixed cutoff, and any page that gives you one is inventing it.

What the physician needs is information that accurately reflects your current clinical situation.

What that means in practice depends on the condition being evaluated, so the specifics live on the page for your care path: Cancer · Knee & Joint Pain · Immune Support · Wound Healing.

If you are not sure whether a document is relevant, send it anyway — deciding what is relevant is the physician’s call.

And you do not need to obtain anything new before your case is reviewed. The physician, on joint cases:

We also review hip and shoulder cases. Send the imaging and reports you already have; you do not need to obtain new studies solely for Human Paths before the physician reviews your case.

If a particular X-ray, MRI or other study is needed after seeing what already exists, it can be requested then.

How to request records

Start with the medical records department, not your doctor’s office. Most hospitals have a dedicated department for releasing records, and going directly there is usually faster.

You will need to sign a release form. In the United States you have a legal right to your own records, and institutions must provide them. They may charge a fee for copies.

Imaging is handled separately from written records at most institutions — usually by the radiology or imaging department. Ask specifically for the studies on disc, and be clear about which dates you need.

Expect it to take time. Some institutions respond within days. Others take several weeks, particularly for older studies that have been archived.

Ask for digital copies where possible. It simplifies everything afterward.

If you are gathering records for someone else

You will generally need written authorization from the patient to request their records. Hospitals will ask for it.

If you already hold a healthcare power of attorney or similar authority, bring that documentation — it usually replaces the individual release.

How to send them to us

Records are uploaded through a secure link that we send you. The upload is encrypted in transit and stored encrypted.

Do not send medical records by text message or email. Neither is secure enough for this kind of information, and we will never ask you to.

You can send documents as you get them. Records rarely arrive all at once — pathology from one hospital, imaging from a radiology center, notes from somewhere else — and the link is there for that. There is no need to wait until everything is collected.

What happens to them

Your records are organized and provided to the reviewing physician in Mexico. They are not sold, not shared with data brokers, and not used for advertising.

You can request deletion at any time. See our Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy for the full explanation, including what it means that your information crosses a border.

If you cannot obtain something

Some records are genuinely difficult to get — an institution that has closed, studies done abroad, treatment from many years ago.

Tell us what is missing rather than delaying. The physician decides whether the available information is sufficient to form an opinion, and that judgment is theirs, not ours. Sometimes it is. Sometimes they will ask for something specific before proceeding.

This page describes an administrative process and is not medical advice. It does not establish a physician-patient relationship.