SB 5254 Washington Senate · 2025-2026 Regular Session

Strengthening patients' rights regarding their health care information.

SB 5254 strengthens patients' rights to access their electronic health care information by limiting fees charged by health care providers. It prohibits providers from charging more than $50 for electronic records delivered to patients, their representatives, attorneys, or other treating health care providers. The bill also requires the Department of Health to establish fee standards based on actual costs (not per page) for accessing records. This directly affects patients seeking their health data and health care facilities handling record requests.

Issues: ✓ Healthcare ✓ Technology

Bill status in committee 1 of 4 stages cleared

Introduction

Jan 2026

Committee Review

Floor Vote

Governor

Introduced Jan 12, 2026 Last action Jan 12, 2026

Maddy AI version diff · 1 comparison

What changed between versions

Bill → Substitute Bill · 4 edits

MODERATE

The bill was amended to modernize its formatting and refine the fee structure for accessing health records. A key change is the addition of a specific $50 fee cap for electronic records delivered electronically, while the original bill's broader fee rules for paper records were removed. The bill also updated the responsible department from 'social and health services' to 'health' in certain contexts and clarified the federal law exemptions.

Scope change

The bill's scope regarding fee limits was narrowed to specifically target electronic records delivered electronically, whereas the original version applied a general fee rule to all record types.

REQUIREMENT

The $50 fee cap was explicitly limited to electronic records delivered in an electronic format, removing the previous general fee limit that applied to all record types.

DEFINITION

The definition of the responsible 'department' was changed from 'department of social and health services' to 'department of health' in the fee-setting section.

TECHNICAL

The bill text was updated to include specific references to the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the fee and authorization sections.

Formatting and structural elements were updated, including the bill number, sponsor attribution, reading date, and page numbering style.

Floor votes

How they voted

No floor votes recorded yet.

Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Jan 12, 2026

Introduced

By resolution, reintroduced and retained in present status.

upper

Feb 21, 2025

Committee

Referred to Ways & Means.

upper

Feb 21, 2025

Upper · Passed

Minority; without recommendation.

upper

Feb 21, 2025

Upper · Passed

Minority; do not pass.

upper

Feb 21, 2025

Committee

And refer to Ways & Means.

upper

Feb 21, 2025

Upper · Passed

Executive action taken in the Senate Committee on Health & Long-Term Care at 8:00 AM.

upper

Feb 4, 2025

Upper · Passed

Public hearing in the Senate Committee on Health & Long-Term Care at 10:30 AM.

upper

1 primary · 5 co-sponsors