The platform exit: records, clients, and what transfers

Who holds the record, you or the platform?

That question has a legal answer and a contractual one, and the two live in different documents. HIPAA defines a covered entity as a health plan, a health care clearinghouse, or a health care provider who transmits health information electronically in connection with a covered transaction 1Ref 1U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2000).§ 160.103 Definitions.The federal definition of a covered entity, used to show that whether the clinician or the platform must answer for a record turns on who transmits health information electronically in connection with a covered transaction.. The software you used does not decide it. Your own electronic transmissions do, and so does the agreement you signed.

If the platform handles protected health information on your practice's behalf, it is sitting as a business associate, and the business-associate contract has to carry a termination clause. Federal rule requires that contract to obligate the business associate, when the contract ends, to return or destroy all the protected health information it received from or created for the practice and to keep no copies, unless returning or destroying it is not feasible, in which case the protections continue indefinitely under the same terms 2Ref 2U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2026).45 CFR 164.504 - Uses and disclosures: Organizational requirements.The requirement that a business-associate contract obligate the business associate, at termination, to return or destroy the protected health information it holds and keep no copies, or where that is infeasible to continue protecting it under the same terms..

But that is a rule about what the contract must say. It says nothing about how long an export takes, what format arrives, or whether the file is readable when it reaches you. Ask for the format and the timeline in writing before you give notice, and keep the answer.

The other arrangement puts the platform in a different chair, billing under its own name and holding the chart as its own record. Leaving that is a departure from an organization, and the chart does not move because you moved.

Which chair the platform sits in is written in your participating-provider agreement, in the section about termination.

What counts as the client's record

More than the notes. HIPAA's designated record set covers the medical records and billing records a covered health care provider maintains, along with a health plan's enrollment, payment, claims and case-management records, and any record used to make decisions about individuals 3Ref 3U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2026).45 CFR 164.501 - Definitions.The federal definition of the designated record set, used to show that billing and claims files kept on a practice's behalf can be part of what a client is entitled to receive, not only the clinical notes.. So the claims history and the billing file a platform kept on your behalf can be part of what a client is entitled to receive, alongside the chart.

Psychotherapy notes sit outside that. The right of access carves them out explicitly 4Ref 4U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2026).45 CFR 164.524 - Access of individuals to protected health information.The right to inspect and copy the designated record set and to direct a copy to a third party by written signed request, the 30-day deadline to act with one extension of up to 30 more days, and the psychotherapy-notes carve-out from the access right., and the category is narrower than the phrase sounds, so read the definition in the rule before assuming a given note falls inside it.

Inventory what exists before you give notice, because you cannot request a file you did not know was kept. The list worth writing has five lines on it: the chart itself, any separately kept process notes, the claims and remittance history, the messages sent inside the platform, and the appointment and cancellation log.

How a record moves to your new practice

Through the client, in writing. A client has the right to inspect and copy the protected health information in their designated record set, and to direct that a copy go straight to a third party by a written, signed request naming the recipient 4Ref 4U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2026).45 CFR 164.524 - Access of individuals to protected health information.The right to inspect and copy the designated record set and to direct a copy to a third party by written signed request, the 30-day deadline to act with one extension of up to 30 more days, and the psychotherapy-notes carve-out from the access right.. That request is the instrument that moves a chart to your new practice, and the holder must act within 30 days, with one extension of up to 30 more days 4Ref 4U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2026).45 CFR 164.524 - Access of individuals to protected health information.The right to inspect and copy the designated record set and to direct a copy to a third party by written signed request, the 30-day deadline to act with one extension of up to 30 more days, and the psychotherapy-notes carve-out from the access right..

A second rule points the same way. The 21st Century Cures Act prohibits practices that interfere with the access, exchange or use of electronic health information, subject to eight defined exceptions, and clinicians are actors under it 5Ref 5Office of the National Coordinator / ASTP (2026).Information Blocking.That the 21st Century Cures Act prohibits practices interfering with the access, exchange or use of electronic health information, subject to eight defined exceptions, and that clinicians are actors under the rule.. The obligation follows you into your own practice. Whoever holds the chart on the day a request arrives is the one answering for it.

Retention is the part that gets left behind. The schedules are set by state law and by your licensing board, and they keep running after the platform relationship ends, which is why the awkward versions of this question all have the same shape: who answers a records request three years from now, who answers the subpoena, who answers after a client dies.

Get the platform's answer in writing, and get your own copy of anything you are the one responsible for keeping.

The clients: what a platform agreement can reach

Clients decide where they go. A contract binds the clinician who signed it, and what a platform agreement can reach is what you say, to whom, and when, which is where non-solicitation language sits. Read the participating-provider agreement for three things by name: the notice period, any restriction on soliciting clients or other clinicians, and what the platform is permitted to tell your caseload once you resign.

Your license carries a duty the contract does not touch. The NASW Code of Ethics, at section 1.16(b), directs social workers referring a client to another professional to take appropriate steps to facilitate an orderly transfer of responsibility and, with the client's consent, to disclose pertinent information to the new provider 6Ref 6National Association of Social Workers (2021).Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers.Section 1.16(b)'s duty, on referring a client to another professional, to take appropriate steps toward an orderly transfer of responsibility and to disclose pertinent information to the new provider with the client's consent, as an obligation independent of any platform contract.. That is the social work code specifically. Psychologists, counselors and marriage and family therapists answer to their own codes, and the continuity language there is worth reading in the original.

But an orderly transfer and a prohibited solicitation are told apart by who started the conversation and by what the agreement permits, which makes timing the whole of it. A clinician who reads the notice clause in month one has options that a clinician reading it in the last week does not.

Two questions decide the caseload math you are planning around. How many of your clients can pay your fee if an in-network rate does not travel with you, and do you own your insurance contracts in your own name and tax ID, or was the credentialing done under a group. The second is answered by your payer agreements, not by any general rule, and it is worth answering before you count on a full schedule in month two.

What was always yours

Your license and your credentialing profile. CAQH's Provider Data Portal, still widely called ProView, is a single profile you enter and maintain yourself, and you separately authorize specific organizations to access it 7Ref 7CAQH (2026).CAQH Provider Data Portal (ProView) - Registration.That the credentialing profile is entered and maintained by the provider, who then authorizes specific organizations to access it, so the underlying credentialing data is provider-maintained rather than platform-owned.. Access runs organization by organization, so the attestation history, the practice locations, the malpractice dates and the license numbers do not belong to any one platform that reads them.

Network participation is a different thing from credentialing, and it is the one that decides revenue. A credentialing file is the raw material a payer uses to make a decision. The contract that puts you in network is a separate agreement, and whether one exists in your own name is a question for each payer and for the paperwork you signed when you joined.

Ask every payer, in writing, what your participation status is under your own name and tax ID, and ask before you give notice. Check what the NPPES registry shows for your individual NPI while you are at it, and update the practice address when it changes.

A sixty-day exit sequence

Work backward from the last session you intend to hold on the platform. The steps that belong before notice are the ones that get skipped: reading the termination clause, inventorying the record, and asking each payer where your contract stands. After notice, most of the clock belongs to somebody else, and the thirty-day access deadline is the fastest one running.

None of this needs counsel to begin. It needs the agreement in front of you and an afternoon with it. Counsel earns its fee in two specific places: a non-solicitation clause you cannot read plainly enough to follow, and a platform that does not answer a written records request. Both conversations are shorter once the inventory and the dates already exist.