Browser-only date tool · nothing typed is stored or sent
A client asked for their records. By when, for how much, and how long must the file exist?
Enter the date the written request arrived and the page gives the inspection, copies and summary deadlines from Health and Safety Code §123110 and §123130, the fee cap, and, from the termination and birth dates, the date the Board’s seven-year rule lets the file go.
The dates →The dates
Three dates in, five dates out.
Working days skip Saturdays and Sundays; the statute does not define the term and this page does not subtract public holidays, so a deadline that lands beside one is yours to check. Every other period is calendar days from receipt. A request from a lawyer with a subpoena is a different thing: see the subpoena page.
The rule
Two codes, five numbers.
On a written request, the patient may inspect the records “within five working days after receipt of the request.” Health and Safety Code §123110(a).
Copies “within 15 days after receiving the request”; 30 days where the request relates to an application for a public benefit program. The fee is capped at twenty-five cents a page on paper and fifty cents a page from microfilm, plus reasonable clerical costs. §123110(b).
§123130 lets the provider prepare a summary, lists what it must contain, and sets the deadline; if the record is extraordinarily long or the patient was discharged in the last ten days the provider gives a completion date, but “in no case shall more than 30 days elapse.”
“A marriage and family therapist shall retain a client’s or patient’s health service records for a minimum of seven years from the date therapy is terminated. If the client or patient is a minor, […] for a minimum of seven years from the date the client or the patient reaches 18 years of age.” B&P §4980.49; identical text at §4993 (LCSW), §4999.75 (LPCC) and §4989.51 (LEP). Subdivision (b) of each: therapy terminated on or after 1 January 2015.
Then what
The pages the dates come from.
The rules in full
Client records in California: seven years, five working days, fifteen days, 25 cents
The summary option, the mental-health exception and the three duties it triggers.
When it is not a request
Subpoenaed as a California therapist
What to do first, and why a subpoena is not a records request.
The file after the dates
Record retention and destruction schedule
A private worksheet for the files whose date has passed.
Where this sits
Opening a private practice: the checklist
The seven-year rule is item fifteen of sixteen.
Where every figure came from
Sources.
Access
Retention
Dates are computed in the browser from what is typed; nothing is stored or sent. The page applies the periods; whether a particular request is a “written request” under §123110, or a particular file is a mental health record under §123115, is not something it decides.
