Leaving employment: the charts stay, the continuity duty travels

Do I get my patients' records when I leave a group?

Generally no. The practice or group that created and maintains the record as the HIPAA covered entity is the one with custody of it, and that custody does not follow an individual clinician out the door. You leave without a legal right to take copies of patient charts with you, even for patients you saw for years and expect to keep treating.

What does travel with you is a continuity-of-care obligation and, separately, the patient's own right to their record — two things that solve the practical problem of ongoing treatment without requiring you to walk out with a box of charts.

Who actually holds the record when you leave

Record custody attaches to the entity, not the clinician who happened to write a given note, and the HIPAA Privacy Rule governs how that entity may use and disclose the record it holds regardless of staffing changes 1Ref 1HHS Office for Civil Rights (2026).Summary of the HIPAA Privacy Rule.That the Privacy Rule governs use and disclosure of PHI by the covered entity, independent of individual staffing changes.. The Security and Privacy Rule text at 45 CFR Part 164 continues to bind the practice's obligations around the record after you're gone exactly as it did while you were there 2Ref 2Office of the Federal Register (2026).45 CFR Part 164 — Security and Privacy.The operative Security and Privacy Rule text that continues to bind the practice's record obligations after a clinician's departure..

If your employment agreement is silent on this, the default is still that the entity retains custody — silence favors the practice, not the departing clinician. Read your contract for what it actually says about records access after termination rather than assuming a shared understanding covers it.

This is separate from asking for your own work product. You can generally request a de-identified summary of your caseload or productivity for credentialing and resume purposes without that request touching the identifiable patient record at all — a distinction worth naming explicitly when you ask, so the request doesn't get read as an access-to-charts demand.

What patients can do when their clinician leaves

A patient's right to their own record does not depend on which clinician is currently on staff — they can request a copy directly from the practice under the HIPAA right of access, get a response within 30 days (one 30-day extension available), in the form and format they request where producible, for a reasonable cost-based fee 3Ref 3HHS Office for Civil Rights (2026).Individuals' Right under HIPAA to Access their Health Information.That patients may request copies of their own records within 30 days (one 30-day extension), in the form and format requested where producible, for a reasonable cost-based fee, regardless of staff departures.. That right is the practical bridge between "you can't take the chart" and "the patient still needs their history."

Telling patients this directly, in plain language, does more for continuity than anything you could accomplish by trying to informally carry records yourself. Point them at the request process rather than promising to handle it for them once you've left.

Departure notices: what to tell patients and when

A clear departure notice, given with reasonable advance lead time, is the standard practice-norm mechanism for meeting your continuity obligation without needing custody of the chart. Many practices treat 30 to 60 days as a common advance-notice window for an orderly transition, though the right number depends on your specialty, your caseload, and any notice terms in your employment agreement.

The notice itself should tell patients three things: that you're leaving, whether or where they can continue seeing you, and how to request their own records if they choose a different clinician. Professional record-keeping guidance treats this kind of disposition planning as part of ordinary practice management, not an afterthought bolted onto an exit 4Ref 4American Psychological Association (2007).Record Keeping Guidelines.Professional-body guidance treating disposition and transition planning as part of ordinary record-keeping practice..

Non-competes and whether you can keep treating these patients

Whether you can continue seeing the same patients at a new practice often turns on a non-compete or non-solicit clause in your employment agreement, and the legal landscape around those clauses is unsettled. The FTC's 2024 rule that would have banned most non-competes was set aside by a federal district court, so employer non-competes currently remain governed by state law while the litigation continues 5Ref 5Federal Trade Commission (2024).Noncompete Rule.That the FTC's 2024 non-compete ban was set aside by a federal court, leaving employer non-competes governed by state law while litigation continues..

Because the rule's status can change, read your specific clause and your state's current treatment of non-competes before assuming either that it's unenforceable or that it locks you out entirely. This is a contract and state-law question, not a records-retention one, but it shapes how far your continuity duty can actually extend.

A non-solicit clause is a distinct restriction from a non-compete and is sometimes enforceable even where a broader non-compete is not — it can bar you from reaching out to former patients even if it doesn't bar you from practicing nearby. Read both clauses separately rather than assuming one covers the other.

If the group itself is closing, not just you

Your departure and the practice's closure are different events with different record consequences, and it matters which one you're actually facing. If you're one clinician leaving a practice that continues operating, the custodian arrangement stays with the group. If the whole practice is closing, someone has to become the records custodian, and storage after the practice shuts down becomes its own project — a physical or vendor-hosted archive, with someone responsible for fielding future requests.

A solo clinician who was the sole owner of a now-closing practice faces this directly; an employee leaving an intact group generally does not. Know which situation you're in before you assume the records question resolves itself. The same custody questions resurface sharply when a patient dies mid-treatment, since continuity and access duties don't end with the patient's death either.

Get chart ownership in writing before you need the answer

The best time to settle chart ownership and post-departure access is when you sign the employment agreement, not when you're already halfway out the door. Ask specifically what happens to the records of patients you saw, whether you can obtain a de-identified summary of your own clinical work for credentialing purposes, and who patients should contact after you leave.

If that agreement is already signed and silent, raise it in your departure conversation rather than assuming it will sort itself out. A one-paragraph written understanding — even an email confirming who patients should contact — closes most of the gap between an ambiguous contract and an actual continuity plan.