← Missouri medical records custodian and retention laws

Missouri — Medical Records Checklist

For a practice that is closing, being sold, relocating or whose physician is retiring. Prepared 21 September 2026.

How long records must be kept

Adult patients: A minimum of 7 years.
Patients who were minors: Missouri sets no separate period for minors. A patient who was under 18 at the time of care has until their twentieth birthday to bring a claim, so those records are commonly held at least that long.
Clock starts: The date the last professional service was provided.
Also: The statute is silent on imaging and immunization records - it does not create parity with other states, and this checklist does not invent it.

What you may charge for copies

A search and retrieval fee of $24.85, plus 57 cents per page.
Up to $23.26 additional retrieval labour where records are in off-site storage.
Records supplied electronically: a total not exceeding $108.88.
Postage including packaging and delivery; a notary fee of up to $2 if requested; the reasonable cost of reproducing anything that cannot be copied on a standard photocopier, such as X-rays.

Where this comes from

RSMo s.334.097 (retention)
https://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=334.097
RSMo s.191.227 (fees)
https://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=191.227
RSMo s.516.105 (minors' limitation period)
https://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=516.105

Read this before you act on it. Every statement above was taken from the state's own published rule or statute and is quoted or closely paraphrased from it. It is a working checklist, not legal advice, and it is a snapshot: retention periods change, and several states adjust their copying fees every year. Confirm the current text with the source listed above, or with your attorney, before you rely on a date or a dollar figure.

Figures stated as of: Missouri's fees are adjusted EVERY 1 FEBRUARY by the medical-care component of CPI-U. Figures as revised 28 August 2025 - confirm before billing.

Prepared by Morgan Records Management for Missouri. Checklist built 21 September 2026.