You are switching therapists, or filing for disability, or appealing a denial, or you simply want to read what has been written about you for two years. You do not have to explain any of that to anybody. You have to send one signed sentence and then count.
The short answer: in California, a written request from you obliges the provider to let you inspect your record during business hours within five working days, and to send copies within fifteen days, at no more than twenty-five cents a page for paper. They may not hold your record back because you owe them money. There is one exception that applies specifically to mental health records — a provider who documents a substantial risk of significant adverse consequences may release the record to a licensed clinician you name instead of to you — and there is a summary option that runs on its own clock. Everything below is the procedure, in the order it happens, with the sentences to send and the dates to write down.¹ ² ³
Before you start: the four facts that decide your route
| Question | If yes | If no |
|---|---|---|
| Is the provider still practising, and reachable? | Send the letter in Step 2 | Go to Step 6 — the custodian of records |
| Do you need the record, or an answer from the record? | Ask for the record (Step 2) | Ask for a summary (Step 5) — often faster |
| Is there a deadline behind this — a hearing, an appeal, a claim? | Write it here: / / and work backwards | Take the standard route |
| Are you asking for someone else's record — a child's, a parent's? | You are a "personal representative"; expect to prove it | Ask as yourself |
The law names three kinds of requester: an adult patient, a minor patient who is legally allowed to consent to their own treatment, and a patient's personal representative.¹ If you are asking as a representative, attach the document that makes you one — a power of attorney, a court order, a birth certificate — with the first letter, not after they ask.
Decide what you actually need, narrowly
A request for "everything" takes longer, costs more per page, and buries the two paragraphs you needed. Decide first.
- What this is for, in one sentence:
- What I need: ☐ full record ☐ intake and diagnosis ☐ progress notes ☐ treatment summary ☐ testing report ☐ medication history ☐ discharge summary ☐ billing records
- Date range: from / / to / /
- Format: ☐ paper ☐ electronic ☐ inspection in person first, copies after
- Deliver to: ☐ me ☐ my new therapist ☐ both
A note on process notes. The private notes a therapist keeps separately from the official chart are governed differently from the record itself. Do not litigate that distinction in your letter. Ask for "my patient records," and let the provider sort what belongs in them.
Send the letter
It has to be in writing and signed. Email with a typed signature is accepted by most practices; if you want no argument about it, send the same text as a PDF with a signature image, or post it and keep the receipt. Address it to the therapist and, if there is one, the practice's records or privacy contact.
Subject: Request for patient records — [your full name], DOB [date]
I am requesting access to my patient records under Health and Safety Code section 123110.
Please make the records available for inspection during business hours within five working days of this request, and provide copies within fifteen days. I understand copies may be charged at up to twenty-five cents per page for paper copies, and fifty cents per page for records copied from microfilm, plus reasonable clerical costs.
I am requesting: [what you listed in Step 1], for the period [dates].
Please send copies to: [address or secure email].
If you intend to provide a summary under section 123130 rather than the records themselves, please tell me in writing within the statutory period, along with the date the summary will be delivered.
Date: [date] · Signature: · Printed name:
Phone: · Date of birth: · Dates of treatment:
Sent on / / · by ☐ email ☐ post ☐ portal ☐ hand · Copy kept ☐
Write down the two clocks you just started
The statute is specific, and the specificity is the point: you are not asking anyone to hurry, you are counting.
| What you asked for | The rule | Your date |
|---|---|---|
| Inspection, during business hours | "within five working days after receipt of the request"¹ | / / |
| Copies | "transmitted within 15 days after receiving the request"¹ | / / |
| A summary, if the provider offers one instead | Within 10 working days; and "in no case shall more than 30 days elapse between the request by the patient and the delivery of the summary"³ | / / |
Two details worth knowing before the invoice arrives. The copying charge is capped at twenty-five cents a page for paper and fifty cents a page for records copied from microfilm, plus reasonable clerical costs, and the provider may charge reasonable costs for the inspection itself.¹ And the statute prohibits a provider from withholding your records, or a summary of them, because of an unpaid bill for health care services.¹ If a billing office tells you otherwise, that sentence is the answer.
You are also allowed to bring someone. The law lets a patient be accompanied by one other person of their choosing during the inspection.¹ For a first look at two years of your own notes, that is not a small provision.
The mental health exception, and what it actually permits
This is the one place where a request can be refused, and it is narrower than it sounds. A provider may decline to let you see or copy mental health records only by determining that there is a substantial risk of significant adverse or detrimental consequences to you in seeing them. Having made that determination, the provider is not finished. They must then permit inspection by, or provide copies to, "a licensed physician and surgeon, licensed psychologist, licensed marriage and family therapist, licensed clinical social worker, or licensed professional clinical counselor, designated by request of the patient." And they must make a written record of the date of the request and their reason for refusing, "including a description of the specific adverse or detrimental consequences to the patient."²
So a refusal, done properly, still ends with your records in the hands of a clinician you chose. If you are refused, reply with this:
I acknowledge your determination under Health and Safety Code section 123115(b). I designate [name, licence type, licence number] to receive inspection and copies on my behalf, and I request written confirmation of the date of my request and the specific consequences you have documented, as that section requires.
Clinician I designate: · Licence #: · Sent / /
The summary route, when you want an answer rather than a chart
A provider may prepare a summary instead of releasing the record. It is not a brush-off; for some purposes it is the better document, because a summary is required to cover the chief complaint and pertinent history, findings from consultations and referrals, the diagnosis where one was determined, the treatment plan, regimen and medications, the progress of treatment, the prognosis and significant continuing problems, pertinent diagnostic reports and discharge summaries, objective findings from the most recent physical examination, and a list of current medications with dosages and any drug sensitivities or allergies.³
The clock: ten working days, extendable only where the record is of extraordinary length or the patient was discharged from a licensed health facility within the last ten days, with notice of the revised date, and never more than thirty days from request to delivery.³
Ask for a summary when the reader is an underwriter, an adjuster, a school, or a lawyer who needs the shape of the treatment. Ask for the record when the reader is you, or your next therapist.
If the provider has died, retired or closed the practice
Records do not evaporate with a practice. Find the custodian:
- LMFT, LCSW, LPCC, or an associate: the Board of Behavioral Sciences — bbs.ca.gov, and its licence lookup at search.dca.ca.gov
- Psychologist: the Board of Psychology — psychology.ca.gov
- Psychiatrist or other physician: the Medical Board of California — mbc.ca.gov
- A group practice or clinic: the entity holds the record, not the individual clinician. Write to the practice manager.
Custodian found: · Contacted / /
When a deadline passes
Send this on the day after the deadline, not a week later. Deadlines that are enforced get met; deadlines that are mentioned do not.
The statutory deadline under Health and Safety Code section 123110 passed on [date]. I am requesting the records by [date one week out]. If they are not provided, I will file a complaint with your licensing board and, separately, with the federal Office for Civil Rights under the HIPAA right of access.
Then file. It is a form, not a lawsuit.
| Route | Where | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Licensing board complaint | BBS, Board of Psychology, or Medical Board, via the board's own site | Records access is an enforcement matter for the boards, not paperwork |
| HIPAA right of access complaint | US Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights, ocrportal.hhs.gov | The federal right runs alongside the state one, and OCR has enforced it repeatedly |
| Small claims | Your county's superior court | Rarely necessary, occasionally decisive |
Deadline passed / / · Follow-up sent / / · Complaint filed / /
When the record arrives, read it in a particular way
Clinical shorthand is written for clinicians and reads colder than the room felt. "Patient presents disheveled, affect flat, poor insight" is a set of billing-adjacent observations, not a verdict on you. Read it twice: once for the sting, once for the content.
Then use the correction right almost nobody is told about. If something in the record is incomplete or incorrect, you may submit a written addendum. It is limited to 250 words per item you say is wrong, and the provider must attach it to your record and include it whenever that portion of the record is disclosed to a third party.⁴
- Item I say is wrong: · Page/date:
- My addendum, 250 words or fewer, attached ☐ · Sent / / · Confirmed attached ☐
That last box matters more than it looks. An addendum that is written but not attached does nothing; an addendum that is attached travels with the record into every future disclosure.
What happens next
Most requests are filled uneventfully and inside the deadlines, because practices process them constantly. If you are taking the record to a new therapist, hand it over at the first session with one sentence about what you want carried forward and what you would rather they form their own view about. If the record is going into an appeal or a disability claim, pull the two or three pages that show the functional problem — what you cannot do, and since when — because that is what a reviewer reads. The appeal worksheet → · The SDI claim worksheet →
Q&A
Q: Can I get copies of my own therapy records in California? A: Yes. Under Health and Safety Code section 123110, a written, signed request obliges the provider to permit inspection within five working days and to transmit copies within fifteen days, at up to twenty-five cents a page for paper copies. A mental health provider may decline direct access only by documenting a substantial risk of significant adverse consequences, and must then release to a licensed clinician you designate.¹ ²
Q: Do I have to say why I want them? A: No. The statute conditions access on a written request, not on a reason.¹
Q: Can they refuse because I owe the practice money? A: No. The section prohibits withholding records or summaries because of an unpaid bill for health care services.¹ The debt is still owed; the record is still yours.
Q: What about the notes my therapist keeps for themselves? A: Separately kept psychotherapy process notes are treated differently from the official record under federal law, and providers handle them conservatively. Ask for your patient records and let the provider apply the distinction; if the answer matters to a legal case, that is a question for a lawyer rather than a records clerk.
Q: How long does a therapist have to keep my records? A: Longer than most people expect, and it varies by licence type and by whether the patient was a minor. If you are close to a limit, ask in writing now rather than next year, and keep the copy you receive.
Q: They sent a summary and I wanted the whole chart. A: The summary option is real, and so is its deadline: ten working days, and never more than thirty from your request.³ If the summary does not answer your question, write back naming section 123110 and asking specifically for inspection, which the summary route does not extinguish.
Our therapist directory: See its current status → · What to ask on the consult call →
Sources
- California Health and Safety Code §123110 — inspection "during business hours within five working days after receipt of the request"; copies "transmitted within 15 days after receiving the request"; "twenty-five cents ($0.25) per page for paper copies or fifty cents ($0.50) per page for records that are copied from microfilm"; adult patients, minors authorized to consent, and personal representatives; accompaniment by "one other person of their choosing"; prohibition on withholding records for an unpaid bill — california.public.law.
- California Health and Safety Code §123115(b) — the mental health exception: "substantial risk of significant adverse or detrimental consequences to a patient in seeing or receiving a copy of mental health records"; release instead to "a licensed physician and surgeon, licensed psychologist, licensed marriage and family therapist, licensed clinical social worker, or licensed professional clinical counselor, designated by request of the patient"; written record of the date and "a description of the specific adverse or detrimental consequences to the patient" — california.public.law.
- California Health and Safety Code §123130 — summary option; "within 10 working days from the date of the patient's request"; "in no case shall more than 30 days elapse between the request by the patient and the delivery of the summary"; required contents of the summary — california.public.law.
- California Health and Safety Code §123111 — patient addendum: "limited to 250 words per alleged incomplete or incorrect item"; the provider "shall attach the addendum to the patient's records" and include it in any disclosure of that portion of the record — california.public.law.
- Medical Board of California, "Patient Access to Medical Records" — mbc.ca.gov.
- US Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights, complaint portal — ocrportal.hhs.gov.
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