Every person gets one health story, and one private Family Stork email address every clinic already knows how to use. Tired of managing health records for yourself and everyone you love? Family Stork organizes them for you automatically.
You just got home from the ER with your child. The fever broke. The arm is splinted. The allergic reaction is under control. You're exhausted and relieved, and the last thing on your mind is paperwork.
But somewhere in that hospital's system, a small mountain of records was just created about your child — and almost none of it will reach your pediatrician unless you make it happen.
Here's what exists, where it lives, and how to get it into one place.
Emergency departments generate more documentation per hour than almost any other medical setting. A single visit can produce all of the following:
That's potentially nine categories of records from a single visit. If your child was transferred, admitted, or seen by a specialist in the ER, there are even more.
Unless the ER and your child's pediatrician are in the same hospital system using the same electronic health record (EHR), the records stay in the hospital's system. Your pediatrician's office has no automatic access.
Even when hospitals and practices use the same EHR vendor, records don't always flow between them. ER notes sit in the hospital's instance; your pediatrician's notes sit in the practice's instance. They may share a name (like MyChart) but not share data.
This means the follow-up appointment — the one where your pediatrician is supposed to review what happened — often starts with you recounting the visit from memory. What was the diagnosis? What medication did they give? What did the X-ray show? If you can't remember (and after a midnight ER run, who can?), your pediatrician is working with incomplete information.
The follow-up after an ER visit is one of the most important appointments your child will have. Your pediatrician needs to understand what happened, what was done, and what to watch for. Bring or send ahead:
If the ER sent records to your child's Family Stork address, all of this is already in their timeline — your pediatrician can see it before the appointment.
If your child has asthma, seizures, a food allergy, diabetes, or any condition that has sent them to the ER before, each visit's records are especially important. They build a pattern your specialists need to see: frequency, severity, triggers, what worked, what didn't.
Without those records in one place, every ER visit starts from zero. The physician asks the same screening questions. You repeat the same history. If the ER physician doesn't know about the medication adjustment from the last visit or the allergy that was just diagnosed, they're making decisions with gaps.
One continuous timeline — with every ER visit, every specialist note, every medication change — means the next ER physician sees the whole picture before they walk in the room.
ER billing is notoriously complex. You may receive separate bills from the hospital (facility fee), the ER physician group (professional fee), the radiologist, the lab, and any specialist who was consulted. These arrive weeks apart, from different addresses, with different account numbers.
Save every Explanation of Benefits (EOB) from your insurer and every bill you receive. Compare them: the EOB shows what the insurer paid and what you owe; the bill shows what the provider is charging you. Discrepancies are common and worth disputing.
If you're tracking your family's health records in one place, forward these billing documents too. They're part of the visit's story and you may need them for FSA/HSA reimbursement, tax deductions (if medical expenses exceed 7.5% of AGI), or insurance disputes.
ER records shouldn't live in a hospital portal you'll never log into again. Every person in your family gets a private @families.familystork.com email address — shown on their record. Give it to the discharge nurse, the hospital's records department, or any follow-up provider. They email records to it; the records file themselves into one timeline.
The next time you're in the ER at 2 a.m., the physician can see every prior visit, every medication, every allergy — from one place.
$99/year for your whole family — or about $10 a month.
Retention periods vary by state, but most hospitals keep medical records for at least 6–10 years for adults and longer for minors (often until the child turns 18–21, plus an additional retention period). Don't rely on the hospital keeping them forever — request copies for your own records, especially for children with ongoing conditions.
Yes. As a legal parent or guardian, you have the right to access your minor child's medical records regardless of who was present at the visit. You may need to show ID and proof of legal guardianship. In shared-custody situations, both parents typically have equal access to the child's records unless a court order restricts it.
The records process is the same regardless of network status. You still have the right to copies. The billing will be different — the No Surprises Act (effective January 2022) protects patients from balance billing for most emergency services, but you should still review EOBs carefully and dispute any surprise charges.
Yes, and the ambulance run report (sometimes called a Patient Care Report or PCR) is another record to request. EMS agencies are separate from the hospital — their documentation may not automatically enter the hospital's EHR. Contact the ambulance service or your local fire department to request a copy.
Ask the hospital's records department to fax or send the discharge summary and key results to your pediatrician's office. You'll need to sign a release-of-information form. Alternatively, if your child has a Family Stork record, give the hospital the child's private @families.familystork.com address — the records file into the timeline, and you can share the relevant visit with your pediatrician directly.
Tired of managing health records for yourself and everyone you love? ER visits, specialist referrals, lab results — Family Stork organizes them for you automatically.
Start your family's record — free