Former Crozer patients can get medical records for free under bankruptcy court settlement
The medical records settlement also ends more than eight years of litigation between Prospect and the foundation.
The Foundation for Delaware County will pay $3 million to cover the cost of medical records for thousands of former Crozer Health patients under an agreement with its bankrupt owner, Prospect Medical Holdings.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Stacey Jernigan approved the deal at a hearing Wednesday. The settlement also ends years of litigation between the foundation and Prospect, which acquired Crozer in 2016 and filed for bankruptcy protection in January.
The foundation’s money is expected to allow as many as 43,000 people to obtain their medical records from the shuttered Crozer system, which was Delaware County’s largest healthcare provider.
“We’re pleased to have the opportunity to assist Delaware County residents whose patient record fees may have been a stumbling block for their transition to new health systems with Crozer’s closure,” foundation president Frances Sheehan said.
Last month, the records management company that Prospect hired started charging to release patients’ information — $35 for emailed records or $75 for records on a USB memory stick.
County and local officials decried the fees as a financial hardship for many former Crozer patients, especially elderly and low-income residents of Chester.
Many people had depended on Crozer-Chester Medical Center for generations before it closed in May, shortly after Prospect closed Taylor Hospital in Ridley Park. The California for-profit had previously closed Springfield Hospital and Delaware County Memorial Hospital in 2022.
The foundation will pay $500,000 to Iron Mountain Information Management and $2.5 million to Morgan Records Management within five days of the settlement’s court approval, according to the agreement filed Friday.
Information on how to obtain medical records is available on the Morgan Records website.
Foundation’s history with Crozer
The foundation secured $55 million from the 2016 sale of the former nonprofit Crozer Keystone Health System. As an independent foundation funded by the proceeds from the sale of a nonprofit hospital to a for-profit firm, its mission is to support the health and welfare of Delaware County residents.
It became a key player in the early months of the bankruptcy proceedings that began in January. As Prospect was threatening to shut down Crozer-Chester Medical Center and Taylor Hospital, Prospect, Pennsylvania’s attorney general, and others in state government wanted to use the foundation’s assets to keep the hospitals open until a new operator could be found.
The foundation paid $20 million to an independent manager temporarily overseeing day-to-day operations at the hospitals. The money was used to pay employees and other expenses.