Who owns your Xrays?

Someone else definitely can't copyright or patent your medical record or anything derived from your treatment or care without your express written consent. A recent famous case involved a haematologist who developed an immortal cell line that produced useful antibodies from a surgical sample of a human splenic lymphoma. The dead patient's family sued, and the judge found in their favor; the haematologist had no right of ownership to this guy's tumor.

How does one pronounce HIPAA Like "hippo", the homicidal water beasts, but with an "ah" at the end.

FWIW, I worked as a clerk in the radiology of a hospital for a while. Yes, the patient does not "own" the x-rays, and we can charge to make and send copies. However, it's a pretty common curtesy to loan out patient's files to other doctors. Maybe it's different for dentists, or maybe this guy is just being petulant.

hipaa=health insurance portability and accountability act of 1996. fun fact...every doctor's office, dentist's office, insurance office, etc., has to have a privacy officer. ask for your rights in writing (they actually have to give them to you before they can see you) and then jot down the privacy officer's name. go home and fill out a request that they not use your information for anything other than your own personal care. use the privacy disclosure form to figure out what they reserve the right to do with your information and put in writing that you don't want them to do it. get the privacy officer to sign it. if they won't, then eh, either live with it or find another doc. if they do, then you have a right to not get your information used for studies and shit....and i have a feeling that they will, cause they want to avoid losing customers and they don't want to look bad in front of the other customers. also...many doctor's office's don't actually know who their privacy officer is....bad sign.

Yeah, call the state dental board. Ask them what they consider a reasonable fee for copies of dental x-rays. Then demand copies at that price from the jerk dentist, mentioning HIPPA, and tell him you'll be talking with the state dental board again if he doesn't comply. Throw in a couple of polite "I'm astonished at this kind of unprofessional behavior"s if you want; they'll probably help. Talking with the assistants rather than the dentist himself might be useful, too.

$5.00 for each set of x-rays or for each individual film? Because if it's for each set, that's damn fair. Considering the dentist has to pay someone about $20.00 an hour for about 15 minutes worth of work, and about $1.00 worth of supplies, and if mailing, another $.50... The dentist I work for only uses double film packets just for this reason, every x-ray exposes two pieces of film, making a copy to give to patient instantly. And of course with digital technology now, a mouseclick should give an instant copy to the patient, if requested. But yes, absolutely, X-rays are the doctor's property. Some will give originals to the patient, but it is very foolish to do so. It leaves them unable to defend themselves later.

fun fact...every doctor's office, dentist's office, insurance office, etc., has to have a privacy officer. That's not entirely accurate. Some medical providers aren't "covered entities" because they don't file insurance information electronically and are thus exempt from HIPAA rules. As far as copyright law goes, since you paid for em, you have a pretty good claim (IMO). A work has to be published to have a copyright (although "published" has a pretty liberal definition). Also, and I'm not entirely sure on this, an X-Ray isn't copyrightable because it's not really the expression of anything. It's a diagnostic test. Although it's similar in nature to a photograph, it has roughly the same expressive nature as a throat culture, and I really don't think you'd get far trying to copyright a Q-Tip.

As far as I understand it, you own your medical record, which includes the information content of those X-rays. However, the dentist/practitioner owns the silver emulsion (or digital media) on which those X-rays were recorded, and can charge a "reasonable fee" to reproduce them.

A work has to be published to have a copyright http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/33217#518245 "http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wccc subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work." "http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wci is available to both published and unpublished works."