A. When you say that New York nursing homes are required to keep records for four years, I assume you mean for four years after a resident's death. Record retention depends on who operates the nursing home. Private or "chain" nursing homes, such as Good Samaritan <www.good-sam.com>, can create their own rules for how long they keep records and what they do with the paperwork after that time frame. State and federal facilities, such as Department of Veterans Affairs <www.va.gov> nursing homes, are required to follow laws and administrative policies for record retention and destruction. The same is true for hospitals and other institutions. Some keep their records indefinitely — provided they have the storage space. Others destroy documents after a certain number of years. Many facilities destroy the detailed patient records, but retain admission and discharge registers that might include general diagnostic information.

If you already know the nursing home's name, your first step will be to determine who owns the facility. You should then contact the director or administrator. Don't necessarily rely on the records clerk to know the correct answer. She may realize they're kept for four years, but not know what happens to the records after she ships them off to wherever she's told to send them. If the institution is state or federally run, you might need to research the laws and policies that govern those facilities and their records. With state institutions, for example, old records may have been sent to the state archive (as for the state-run Cleveland State Hospital in Ohio).