A guide, not a form
What you can download — and where
Almost nobody's medical history lives in one place. Each hospital, practice, lab and pharmacy keeps its own copy, and none of them mentions the other six. Tell us where you are seen and this page becomes your list: what to download, from which screen, and what each download quietly leaves out.
Everything here is a file you can download yourself, free, today. You do not have to get all of it — one source is better than none, and you can come back to this page later.
A few questions
Tick what applies. The list below shrinks to yours only.
What to do, step by step
Tick something above and your steps appear here.
Hospital portal — MyChart
The most common US hospital portal, renamed by each hospital, so yours may be called something else entirely. The machine-readable copy is not optional for them: they are required to be able to give you one.
- How
- Menu → Document Center → Visit Records → All Visits → Download. It is queued and you are emailed; collect it from the Requested Records tab.
- Ask for
- All Visits. Not the summary.
- You should end up with
- A zip. Send it to us unopened — the XML files inside it are the part that matters, and the big PDF is only a printout of them.
- What it leaves out
- One login covers one organization, always — a second hospital is a second download. Scanned outside documents, messages with your doctors and anything you typed in yourself are not in it. Neither are images. The quick summary option (often called Lucy) leaves out your doctors' notes.
- How long
- Minutes to a day.
Hospital portal — Oracle Health (formerly Cerner)
The second most common. There is no national address: the way in is a link your hospital emailed you, and those invitations expire.
- How
- Share Record → Download → pick the file size → Entire record.
- Ask for
- Entire record. The menu says size; it means how much of your record.
- You should end up with
- A zip holding both an XML and a PDF — you do not have to choose.
- What it leaves out
- Anything you entered yourself is dropped. Referral and discharge notes appear only if your provider had asked for them. Mental-health notes marked confidential are shown to nobody, including you — the export looks complete and is not.
- How long
- Immediate.
Hospital portal — MEDITECH MyHealth
Third most common. We have not been able to verify what is inside the file, so send it and we will tell you.
- How
- On the website, not the app: Health Record → look for Download Medical Record → Request → wait for an email → Download. We have not seen this screen ourselves — the wording may differ. Look for the item by name.
- Ask for
- The whole record, if it offers a choice.
- You should end up with
- A zip of web pages with an index. Not the machine format the other two give.
- What it leaves out
- Not yet established.
- How long
- One hospital quotes 48–72 hours.
Watch out. If you find instructions online saying Download My Data → Blue Button → PDF or XML, they are for a different, older portal. That button is not part of MyHealth.
Kaiser Permanente
One login covers both your care and your coverage. The menus other hospitals use do not exist here.
- How
- Menu → Records → Health Summary → download a copy → Download My Data.
- Ask for
- Download My Data.
- You should end up with
- A zip. Send it unopened: Kaiser's own cleanup instructions have you delete the very file we need.
- What it leaves out
- Kaiser says it plainly and is the only one that does: hospital stays and the detailed history are not in it, and you have to ask at a facility for those. It is also a snapshot of today, not an archive — two downloads a year apart are two snapshots, not a history.
- How long
- Immediate.
athenahealth — your practice's portal
Outside hospitals the unit is the individual practice, not the health system: one system can run three different portals for three of its offices, so each practice you see is its own download.
- How
- My health → Health Records → All time.
- Ask for
- All time — the default is a short window.
- You should end up with
- A zip holding an XML per visit.
- What it leaves out
- A result appears only once the practice releases it, and three of these vendors say so independently — an empty results section does not mean you had no labs. The inside of the zip we have not seen ourselves; send it whole.
- How long
- Immediate.
healow / eClinicalWorks — your practice's portal
Outside hospitals the unit is the individual practice, not the health system: one system can run three different portals for three of its offices, so each practice you see is its own download.
- How
- Medical Records → PHR → look for Download PHR or CCD. We have not seen this screen ourselves — the wording may differ. Look for the item by name.
- Ask for
- The CCD, not a printout.
- You should end up with
- A single XML file.
- What it leaves out
- A result appears only once the practice releases it, and three of these vendors say so independently — an empty results section does not mean you had no labs.
- How long
- Immediate.
NextGen — your practice's portal
Outside hospitals the unit is the individual practice, not the health system: one system can run three different portals for three of its offices, so each practice you see is its own download.
- How
- My Chart → Download and send → Save CCDA.
- Ask for
- Save CCDA.
- You should end up with
- A single XML file.
- What it leaves out
- A result appears only once the practice releases it, and three of these vendors say so independently — an empty results section does not mean you had no labs.
- How long
- Immediate.
FollowMyHealth — your practice's portal
Outside hospitals the unit is the individual practice, not the health system: one system can run three different portals for three of its offices, so each practice you see is its own download.
- How
- Summary → Send → Export All My Data.
- Ask for
- Export All My Data — it is the full export, not the summary.
- You should end up with
- A file whose format is not documented anywhere; send it as it is and we will tell you what it holds.
- What it leaves out
- A result appears only once the practice releases it, and three of these vendors say so independently — an empty results section does not mean you had no labs.
- How long
- Immediate.
Watch out. The file is deleted 48 hours after it is made. Download it and upload it to us the same day. This is also the one portal here that can hold several organisations at once — worth checking whether more than one of your practices is connected to it.
Practice Fusion — your practice's portal
Outside hospitals the unit is the individual practice, not the health system: one system can run three different portals for three of its offices, so each practice you see is its own download.
- How
- Overview → Export.
- Ask for
- XML rather than the web-page version, if you are offered both.
- You should end up with
- An XML file, or a folder of web pages.
- What it leaves out
- A result appears only once the practice releases it, and three of these vendors say so independently — an empty results section does not mean you had no labs.
- How long
- Immediate.
Watch out. It makes you tick which sections to include, and an unticked box drops a whole category with nothing in the file to say so. Tick everything. Practice Fusion has also announced it is closing during 2026 — if you have records there, get them now.
Greenway — your practice's portal
Outside hospitals the unit is the individual practice, not the health system: one system can run three different portals for three of its offices, so each practice you see is its own download.
- How
- Look for the Summary page rather than the list of visits — the export lives there. We have not seen this screen ourselves — the wording may differ. Look for the item by name.
- Ask for
- All visits, and the XML rather than the PDF if both are offered.
- You should end up with
- A PDF or an XML.
- What it leaves out
- A result appears only once the practice releases it, and three of these vendors say so independently — an empty results section does not mean you had no labs.
- How long
- Immediate.
TruBridge — your practice's portal
Outside hospitals the unit is the individual practice, not the health system: one system can run three different portals for three of its offices, so each practice you see is its own download.
- How
- One visit at a time — there is no whole-record button. We have not seen this screen ourselves — the wording may differ. Look for the item by name.
- Ask for
- Every visit you can see.
- You should end up with
- A web page per visit, rendered; there is no XML option.
- What it leaves out
- A result appears only once the practice releases it, and three of these vendors say so independently — an empty results section does not mean you had no labs. And because it is one visit at a time, what you do not click is simply absent.
- How long
- Immediate.
Watch out. Our information on this one is five years old and under the company's previous name. If the screens do not match, tell us.
VA — My HealtheVet
Decades of care in one national record. Rarer and more valuable than any hospital portal.
- How
- va.gov → My HealtheVet → medical records → Download your medical records reports.
- Ask for
- The VA Blue Button report, all dates, every record type. Then also the VA Health Summary.
- You should end up with
- Blue Button: one PDF or one text file covering everything. The Health Summary is an XML — download the extra stylesheet file it offers alongside it, or it will look broken.
- What it leaves out
- The complete report is prose; the structured one is thin — it carries only your ten most recent sets of lab tests from the past two years. Whether care the VA purchased in the community is included, we could not establish — do not assume it is.
- How long
- Immediate.
Watch out. Advice to 'check both VA portals' is out of date — the second one is gone.
Military health — MHS GENESIS
Covers every military hospital and clinic since April 2024.
- How
- Health Record → Download and Share Health Record → All Dates (Entire History) → All Sections → Create Summary.
- Ask for
- All Dates, All Sections.
- You should end up with
- An XML and a PDF of the whole record.
- What it leaves out
- Anything before GENESIS. The old system was switched off in April 2025 and the records did not move across — earlier military care has no online route at all and needs a form at the facility's records office. And the VA and the military do not share one record: if you have both, download from both.
- How long
- Immediate.
Watch out. There is no Blue Button and no Download My Data here, whatever older military pages still say.
Not sure which portal you have
Normal, and not a problem: the name you know is the hospital's, and the software behind it is somebody else's. Tell us what the place is called in the box above and we will tell you exactly where the download button is.
- How
- If you would rather find it yourself: open the last email they sent you about an appointment or a result — the portal's own name is usually in the footer. The app icon on your phone carries it too.
- What it leaves out
- Nothing yet — until we know which system it is, we cannot tell you what it leaves out, and that is the part that matters most.
Labcorp
History goes back about 15 years, which is further than most.
- How
- Results → open a result → Download Your Official Report. One at a time, there is no bulk download.
- Ask for
- The official report, not the screen view.
- You should end up with
- One PDF per result. These are good files for us — real text, not pictures.
- What it leaves out
- Pathology and cytology exist only inside the PDF. Employment drug screens are not there at all. And if the name or birth date on your account does not match what the doctor's office sent, results are simply hidden with no error shown.
- How long
- Immediate.
Quest Diagnostics
Three limits stack here, and the site mentions none of them together.
- How
- Verify your identity — nothing is visible before you do. Then look for Find my historical Quest results and start that request first. Once it lands: open a result → the ellipsis → Download PDF.
- Ask for
- The historical request, before anything else.
- You should end up with
- One PDF per result.
- What it leaves out
- A new account shows 12 months. The rest arrives only after the historical request. And nothing before 2010 exists here at all.
- How long
- 24–48 hours for the history request.
Watch out. The option to permanently delete a result sits one item away from Download in the same menu. Go slowly.
Labs done at the hospital or clinic
These are not at a lab company — they are inside the portal download you are already making, so there is nothing separate to do.
- How
- Nothing extra. They come with the hospital or office export above.
- You should end up with
- Part of the portal zip.
- What it leaves out
- Results the practice never released do not appear, and the file gives no sign that they are missing. If you remember a test that is not there, tell us — that is worth a phone call to the office.
Your prescription plan's site
The best medication list there is: it holds every prescription you filled, at whichever pharmacy you collected it — a chain's site only knows its own. The company is Express Scripts, CVS Caremark or Optum Rx, and the name is printed on your pharmacy card.
- How
- Log in and look for Claims History or a prescription report.
- Ask for
- The longest period offered.
- You should end up with
- A printable claims list, or a PDF.
- What it leaves out
- The website usually gives you 24 months while the company holds about ten years. The rest exists, but you have to ask for it by post — and ask for it to be sent to yourself: it is free that way and charged if a third party asks.
- How long
- Immediate online; 6–8 weeks for the full mailed history.
A pharmacy inside your clinic or health system
Kaiser, the VA and many hospitals dispense their own prescriptions. Those fills belong to that organisation's record, not to a chain — there is no separate pharmacy account to log into, and no chain will ever have them.
- How
- Nothing separate to do: they come with that organisation's own export — the portal download above, or the VA's Blue Button report.
- You should end up with
- Part of that download.
- What it leaves out
- At Kaiser the export is a snapshot of today rather than a history: it shows what you take now, not what you took in 2015. If your prescription plan is a separate company, its site holds a second copy of the same fills, going further back.
Walmart pharmacy
The only chain that gives a real data file. Worth asking for by name.
- How
- Pharmacy → prescription history → change the 90-day default → download.
- Ask for
- CSV, if offered. And your vaccination history is a second, separate download.
- You should end up with
- PDF or CSV.
- What it leaves out
- Prescriptions you filled anywhere else, and the drug codes — names come out as printed on the label.
- How long
- Immediate.
Walgreens pharmacy
18 months, and printing is the only way out.
- How
- Prescriptions → Records → Print.
- Ask for
- Print to PDF rather than to paper, and send us the PDF.
- You should end up with
- A printed web page.
- What it leaves out
- Everything older than 18 months has left the viewable history — it exists, on microfilm, and comes back only through a paper form that takes up to 15 business days.
- How long
- Immediate.
CVS pharmacy
Print only, and CVS's own site gives two different paths for it.
- How
- Pharmacy → prescription history → print. If the path on the help page does not work, try the one in the FAQ.
- Ask for
- Print to PDF.
- You should end up with
- A printed page — no documented file format.
- What it leaves out
- CVS MinuteClinic visits are not here: those are in a separate hospital-style portal. And your Caremark record (above) is not the same thing as your CVS store record — collect both.
- How long
- Immediate.
Watch out. If you used to use Rite Aid: it closed in 2025 and its files were split between five different chains with no central place to look. Tell us and we will help you find yours.
Writing the list out yourself
A perfectly good answer, and we ask for it anyway: the questionnaire has a place for each medication — the name, the dose, how often, and since when. A photograph of the boxes works too.
Glucose sensor — Dexcom or Freestyle Libre
The cleanest export in this whole list: your entire history, one file, immediately.
- How
- Dexcom: clarity.dexcom.com → the export icon. Abbott: libreview.com → Glucose History → Download Glucose Data.
- Ask for
- Widen the date range first — the default is the last two weeks.
- You should end up with
- One CSV.
- What it leaves out
- Nothing, for this one.
- How long
- Immediate.
Watch out. It has to be the website — neither phone app can export. And do not open the file in Excel to check it: Excel silently rewrites the timestamps. Send it untouched.
iPhone Health app
Only useful if you actually connected a hospital to it. If you did, this is a genuine second copy of those records.
- How
- Health app → your picture → Export All Health Data.
- You should end up with
- export.zip. Send it whole.
- What it leaves out
- If you never connected a provider, there are no medical records in it at all — just step counts. The export still succeeds and is still large, which is why people believe they have sent their record.
- How long
- A few minutes.
Watch out. The file inside that looks the most medical is the one built from your watch — weight, heart rate, steps. A reader that opens it reports success and shows fitness data dressed as clinical results. We check for this; it is the reason we ask you to send the zip unopened.
Android — Health Connect
Ruling this one out on purpose, because it is where you will be sent.
- How
- Nothing to do here.
- You should end up with
- None that helps.
- What it leaves out
- Google states it plainly: exporting health records is not supported. What Health Connect does export is steps, sleep, heart rate and workouts — so a person who 'exported Health Connect' will believe they sent us their medical record and will have sent us their step count. If you use the Google Health app, its medical-records export is a different thing and may work; send it and we will look, because the format is documented nowhere.
Your images
Upload them on your own upload page — the same place your documents go. Send the disc or the zip as it is; unpacking or renaming is what loses them.
Your records from outside the US
Upload them on your own upload page, in whatever language they are in. Where you have both an original and a translation, send both — the original is the one that counts.
When you have what you could get
You do not have to finish the list before sending anything. Upload each file the moment you have it — one file today and another next week is completely normal. To come back, open controlled.health/continue and ask for a new code — we e-mail it to the address you gave us.
Routes checked 2026-09-16. This corner of the world moves: portals close, buttons are renamed, companies merge. If something here does not match what you see on the screen, tell us — that is a defect in this page, not a mistake by you.