united-states medical health legal-research duty-of-care
laboratory results being withheld until payment received from self pay patient
<p>Is it legal for a Laboratory to withhold results from the ordering provider until a self pay patient pays their bill in full?</p>

<h1>Depends on the contract</h1>
<p>This entirely depends on the contract, and technically even if you ordered it or the doctor - who might have credit with the lab and bills you in return.</p>
<p>However, depending on the contract you might have agreed to payment being due before being allowed to get the result. <strong>Read the contract.</strong> It is relevant what is written there: who is the actual party to the contract and under what modalities do the results get to whom?</p>
<ul>
<li>If <strong>you</strong> ordered, you are entitled to the results under the contract with the lab.</li>
<li>If <strong>the doc</strong> ordered, you are not entitled to results from the lab, the doctor is. You are entitled only to results from the doctor from your treatment contract with the doctor.</li>
</ul>
<p>Do note, that in either case, when you are entitled to the results is spelled out there. It could be &quot;Once available&quot; or &quot;Once paid&quot; or even &quot;by specified date&quot;.</p>
<h2>Ethical Rules?</h2>
<p>Depending on the type of test done, there might or might not be an ethical problem:</p>
<p>There is nothing life-threatening in a paternity test, waiting for the results until the bill is paid wouldn't be at best distressing, but usually not in a manner that would be unethical.</p>
<p>An HIV-test or one for other STDs is quite life-changing, and not telling those results could endanger the person or their close kin. Not giving the results of such a life-changing test might be a breach of the duties of a medical service supplier. These however are spelled out by the relevant medical communities.</p>
