John and @thenazareneshul , great, logical information. It made me look at my laptop and notice for the first time that it indeed has no disk drive. I took a hard copy of an older EMG report to a neurologist to make sure he had it to compare to his new (necessary) test for changes, as he said he never received the medical tests from my previous providers from another state. Well, I watched him do the physical comparisons of the reports. He had to do it manually. Some of the ranges and even units of measure were different because the reports were from different types of packages with different preferences and tolerances set up. I can believe it wholeheartedly that there not only are technology advances today making some old systems and processes too hard to maintain today, but also many software package incompatibility in the past making automated comparison of reports impossible for even simple things that may just need quantitative comparison vs qualitative. They can’t even integrate my weight and blood lab histories with their own data for easy observation, everything has to be done manually by them (though I have a “hobby” of collecting and tracking certain historical data myself). So I can see that each transition to our ever changing improvements in technology has hiccups in transferring historical information, and hope they are working toward a workable solution that helps avoid repeating unnecessary tests to establish new baselines in the new systems. In the end, all costs come back to patients, so I know finding the best solution is a big financial puzzle to put together while also trying to give us the best care.

Your right. I forget that images can be "pushed" from one healthcare system to another. In my last CT however, the doctor left orders I was not to get even the radiologists report. So, I did get a CD of it, along with the paper report via their ROI. I've seen a lot of monkey business with my healthcare, some that took me years to set straight. So, if the reports are on paper, that may be all I really need as long as some doctor can't keep it from being released to another legitimate healthcare provider that I chose. I also know about having to pay for extra copies and that's one of the first things I pay in full each time I get paid. It won't do to have the companies that keep them for each system aggravated too. I think you're right.