All former patients abandoned by the closure, the people in line were returning to the clinic building to claim their medical charts and close the door on a long, inconvenient — and for some, painful — ordeal.
Court trustee E. Lynn Schoenmann organized the records distribution. She sat in front of the clinic entrance, acting as gatekeeper with an inventory list of all the records her office brought from their Belmont storage site. Schoenmann waved in Pattie Brixen, a pain-ridden woman in her 60s, who had a smile on her face despite the long wait.
  
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Brixen says finally obtaining her medical charts will allow her to go forward with a much-needed operation on her back that had to be postponed for months. Not having her records, she said, meant that no surgeon could see her lengthy tests and lab results in advance of the operation. Brixen says she isn’t exaggerating when she says she’s seen 92 physicians since the closure.
“I’m suffering with chronic pain,” she said. “If I didn’t get my records, I would’ve had to go through more tests.”
Ordered by the court to distribute the records, Schoenmann’s office was surprised by getting a response from more than 2,500 patients seeking their medical charts. In the months of confusion stemming from the clinic closure, hundreds of patients had requested records that had already been forwarded to their insurance providers.
Working to unload 124 hefty boxes of records on Tuesday morning, Jim Seeman, a manager for the trustee, said his office has been getting many calls and letters expressing frustration at the unclear status of their records.
One patient arriving hours early at the former clinic reportedly became furious after he was told that his records weren’t in the trustee’s inventory.
Plans to distribute patient records since the Coastside medical center closure have changed many times and been an organizational nightmare. Approximately 13,000 records were turned over to the trustee when the clinic filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, but the clinic directors had already given more than 4,000 records to Mills-Peninsula Health Group, the Health Plan of San Mateo, or to individual patients. The trustee also gained control of more than 24,000 “inactive” records that were in storage at the time of the bankruptcy.
Traci Bensi traveled from Lake Tahoe to reclaim her records. The long trip was a small cost compared to the $1,200 she estimates she’s had to pay out of pocket as a result of not having her medical history in hand.
“All my doctors were saying ‘sorry, you have no records. Tough luck,’” she said. “I’ve had to go without medicine or change medicines to get by.”
Behind Bensi in line, Marisol Nuñez stood waiting with her three toddlers. Not having her family’s records, her children had to wait to get their basic inoculations.
Inside the former clinic, Seeman and several other temporary helpers worked at a breakneck speed trying to help patients. For an office normally devoted to legal and financial matters, Seeman said he’s never experienced a bankruptcy case that involved so much extra work before.
“Next time I see another medical center come up for bankruptcy, I’m retiring,” he said.
The trustee’s office plans to destroy remaining patient records in August, 2010. Up to that time, patients will be able to receive their records by mail, but they will have to pay a processing fee and the cost of delivery.
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