In Ontario, physiotherapy records must be kept for at least 10 years, measured from the later of two dates: the date of the last patient encounter, or the date the patient reached or would have reached 18 years of age. That requirement covers clinical and financial records alike, in every practice setting and in every medium. Retention rules are set by jurisdiction rather than by any single international standard, so the widely repeated seven-year figure circulating online comes from American sources and does not apply in Ontario. This article covers the Ontario rule in full, what counts as a record, why many practitioners retain files well past the minimum, how records must be stored and eventually destroyed, what happens when a clinic closes, and, in the second half, what patients and former patients can request and how far back those requests can reach.

How Long Should Physiotherapy Records Be Kept

Physiotherapy records should be kept for the minimum period set by the regulator in the jurisdiction where the treatment was provided, which in Ontario is at least 10 years and in many other places falls between 5 and 10 years. There is no universal answer, and applying the wrong jurisdiction’s rule is the most common mistake practitioners make when they look this up.

Looking it up online usually produces American guidance, because American sites dominate the search results for this question. Those sources cite seven years as a baseline and discuss state practice acts and federal privacy law, none of which governs a clinic in Ontario. The correct authority for an Ontario physiotherapist is the College of Physiotherapists of Ontario.

The College sets the documentation standard that every registrant practising physiotherapy in the province must meet, and failure to maintain adequate records according to that standard is considered professional misconduct. That makes retention a regulatory obligation rather than a filing preference.

How Long Must Physiotherapy Records Be Kept in Ontario?

Ontario physiotherapists must retain clinical and financial records for at least 10 years from the later of the date of the last patient encounter or the date the patient reached or would have reached 18 years of age. Both dates are calculated for every patient, and the later one governs.

The College of Physiotherapists of Ontario sets out this requirement in its documentation standard, and the reference below summarizes how it applies across record and patient types.

Record or patient type	Retention period	Clock starts from	Note
Adult clinical records	At least 10 years	Date of the last patient encounter	The standard case for most patients
Adult financial and billing records	At least 10 years	Date of the last patient encounter	Held to the same standard as clinical records
Records of patients who are children	At least 10 years	The date the patient reached or would have reached 18	Often means retention into the patient’s late twenties
Deceased patients	At least 10 years	The later of the two standard dates	Death does not shorten the period
Records under active dispute or claim	Beyond the minimum	Not applicable	Retain while a complaint, claim, or proceeding is open or anticipated
Equipment records	5 years	Date of last entry	Retain even if the equipment has been discarded
Any record likely to be needed later	Beyond the minimum	Not applicable	Retain where there is reason to believe the information will be required

The 10-year requirement itself originates in the Public Hospitals Act, 1990, and the College has adopted it to apply to physiotherapists across all practice sectors rather than only in hospital settings. Every registrant is bound by it, including our physiotherapists here in a private clinic. The second starting date in that table deserves separate treatment, because it changes the arithmetic substantially.

How Long Are Records Kept for Child Patients?

Records for patients who were children when treated must be kept for at least 10 years from the date the patient reached or would have reached 18 years of age, not from the last appointment. The clock effectively pauses until the patient turns 18 and then runs for a further decade.

A further decade produces long horizons. A child treated at age six generates a record that must be retained until they turn 28, which is 22 years after the last appointment. A teenager treated at 16 generates a record retained until they turn 28 as well, which is 12 years after treatment. In both cases the age-based calculation produces a later date than the encounter-based one, so it governs.

Governing dates should be recorded at the point of discharge rather than reconstructed years later. Clinics treating any paediatric caseload benefit from flagging those files at the outset, because they will outlive most of the adult records around them. Which raises the question of exactly what has to be kept.

What Counts as a Physiotherapy Record?

A physiotherapy record includes everything documenting the patient’s care and the business of that care, in any medium, including paper, electronic files, audio, video, and photographs. The obligation follows the information, not the format.

The record typically includes:

• Assessment findings. History, objective measures, range of motion, strength testing, outcome measure scores, and the working diagnosis.
• Treatment notes. The date of every session or professional interaction, what was done, parameters used, and the patient’s response.
• Consent documentation. Discussion of risks, benefits, alternatives, and adverse event management.
• The treatment plan and any revisions. Goals, frequency, and the reasoning behind changes.
• Correspondence. Referral letters, reports to physicians, insurer communications, and relevant messages with the patient.
• Financial records. Invoices, receipts, and billing submissions.
• Images and recordings. Photographs, video, and audio captured as part of care.
• Documentation of virtual care. Whether a session was provided virtually must be recorded.

Recording the mode of delivery matters more than it used to, since virtual sessions now form part of many caseloads. Records across all disciplines a clinic offers fall under the relevant regulator for that profession, so files for pelvic floor therapy delivered by a physiotherapist sit under the physiotherapy standard while massage therapy and chiropractic files sit under theirs. The financial side is worth its own answer, because practitioners frequently assume it runs on a different schedule.

Do Financial and Billing Records Follow the Same Retention Period?

Financial and billing records follow the same 10-year retention period as clinical records in Ontario, because the College’s standard covers clinical and financial records together. They are not on a shorter tax-style schedule.

A shorter schedule is what many practitioners assume, having heard the general business advice about keeping financial documents for six or seven years. The College’s requirement is separate from and longer than that, and it is specific to health records. Where the two overlap, the longer period governs.

The longer period also has to be retrievable in full. Physiotherapists must be able to retrieve and reproduce a complete clinical and financial record for each patient throughout the entire retention period, which means a billing system that purges data after five years creates a compliance gap even if the clinical notes survive. That retrieval requirement is why the widely circulated seven-year figure causes real problems.

What Records Need to Be Kept for 7 Years?

The seven-year retention figure comes from American guidance and general business record advice, and it does not describe the requirement for physiotherapy records in Ontario, which is at least 10 years. Following it in an Ontario practice would leave records destroyed three years too early.

Three years early is a serious problem, not a technicality, because the obligation is regulatory and destroying records before the period expires is a professional conduct matter rather than an administrative slip. The seven-year figure appears frequently in search results because American sites dominate this topic and several states and settings use it as a baseline.

A baseline in one jurisdiction is not a rule in another. Practitioners outside Ontario should confirm their own regulator’s requirement rather than assuming either figure applies, since periods differ by province and by profession. For anyone practising in Ontario, 10 years is the floor, and there is a documented reason to treat it as a floor rather than a target.

Can You Keep Records Longer Than the Minimum?

Records can and often should be kept longer than the 10-year minimum, and the College of Physiotherapists of Ontario notes specifically that practitioners may wish to do so because legal proceedings can be brought up to 15 years after an alleged act or omission under the Limitations Act, 2002. The regulatory minimum and the litigation window do not match.

They do not match by a margin of five years. A practitioner who destroys a file at exactly 10 years has complied with the standard and may still find themselves unable to defend a claim brought in year 12, with no contemporaneous record of what was assessed, what was explained, or what consent was obtained. The record is the practitioner’s evidence as much as the patient’s history.

Practitioner evidence is the practical argument for a 15-year internal policy rather than a 10-year one. Any clinic weighing that decision should raise it with the College and, where a specific matter is in play, with a lawyer, since this article describes the standard rather than giving legal advice. A small number of records warrant even longer treatment.

What Records Should Be Kept Forever?

Records connected to an open complaint, claim, investigation, or legal proceeding should be retained indefinitely until that matter is fully resolved, and records a practitioner has reason to believe will be needed for a valid purpose should be kept beyond the minimum regardless of the date. Destroying a file while a matter is live is indefensible.

Indefensible is the right word, because destruction at that point looks like spoliation whatever the intent behind it. Ontario regulatory guidance is explicit that records are maintained past the standard period where it is reasonably known that the health information will be required, with a pending legal proceeding given as the example.

The example generalizes. A patient who has indicated an intention to complain, an insurer querying a claim, an adverse event with any realistic prospect of follow-up, and a College inquiry all put the relevant file outside the normal destruction schedule until the matter closes. Holding files that long puts real weight on how they are stored.

How Should Physiotherapy Records Be Stored?

Physiotherapy records must be stored securely for the entire retention period, with safeguards against loss, theft, damage, and unauthorized access, whether they are held at the clinic, at a practitioner’s home, in third-party storage, or in cloud-based systems. The storage location does not reduce the obligation.

The obligation applies equally to paper and electronic files, and the test in both cases is retrievability: a complete record for each patient must be reproducible throughout the full period. An electronic system that becomes unreadable after a software migration fails that test just as surely as a water-damaged filing cabinet does.

Filing cabinets and cloud accounts both need a named person responsible for them. Where a third party processes, stores, retrieves, or disposes of health information, contractual agreements should address ongoing access, security, use, and destruction for the duration of the retention period. Patients should also be told how they can access their records if they need them. The point at which all of this most often breaks down is clinic closure.

What Happens to Patient Records When a Physiotherapy Clinic Closes?

When a physiotherapy clinic closes, the records do not disappear with it; a physiotherapist must remain the Health Information Custodian, or arrange for another physiotherapist to take on that role, for the remainder of the retention period. Retirement, relocation, and resignation from the College do not end the obligation.

The obligation surviving a closure is not a theoretical point. The College of Physiotherapists of Ontario has published a case in which a former registrant closed their clinic in 2015, resigned their registration in 2016, and moved out of the country. The patient records were left at a home in Ontario. Following a marital separation in 2020 and the sale of that home, the records were destroyed. When a patient later requested their file, the former registrant was unable to produce it, well inside the 10-year period.

Inside the period is where that case turns from a sad story into a conduct matter. Anyone closing, selling, or leaving a practice should settle custody in writing before the doors close, confirm where the records will physically live, name who is responsible, and tell patients how to reach them. Once the retention period genuinely expires, disposal becomes a separate question.

Can Medical Records Be Destroyed After 10 Years?

Physiotherapy records can be destroyed once the full retention period has expired, meaning 10 years from the later of the last encounter or the patient’s eighteenth birthday, provided no dispute, claim, or other reason to retain the file is outstanding. Expiry permits destruction; it does not require it.

Requiring nothing means a clinic can adopt a longer internal policy, and for the litigation reasons already described many do. What a clinic cannot do is destroy early, destroy selectively, or destroy without a defensible record of having done so.

A defensible record means keeping a destruction log noting which files were destroyed, when, by what method, and under whose authority. The log itself contains no clinical content and can be retained indefinitely without difficulty. How the destruction is carried out matters as much as when.

How to Properly Destroy Medical Records

Personal health information must be destroyed permanently and securely at the end of the retention period, in a manner that prevents reconstruction or recovery, and this applies equally to paper and electronic records. Recycling bins and ordinary file deletion do not meet the standard.

A defensible destruction process runs as follows:

1. Confirm eligibility file by file. Check both retention dates and confirm no complaint, claim, insurer query, or College matter is outstanding.
2. Separate what is eligible. Never destroy in bulk by year without individual checks, since paediatric files and disputed files sit on different schedules.
3. Destroy paper by cross-cut shredding or certified destruction. Where a third-party service is used, obtain a certificate of destruction.
4. Destroy electronic records permanently. Deletion alone leaves recoverable data; secure wiping or physical destruction of the storage media is required, and backups must be addressed as well as live systems.
5. Address every copy. Cloud backups, archived exports, email attachments, and local copies on old devices all count.
6. Log the destruction. Record what was destroyed, the date, the method, and who authorized it.

Authorizing destruction is a custodian responsibility, and a clinic offering several disciplines should confirm the requirements of each relevant regulator rather than applying one schedule across all its rehabilitation services. That covers the practitioner’s side of this question in full.

The rest of this article answers the other half, which patients and former patients ask far more often: what you can request, how far back those requests reach, and what you are entitled to have changed.

Who Owns Physiotherapy Records, the Patient or the Clinic?

The clinic or practitioner owns the physical record and acts as its custodian, while the patient owns the personal health information inside it and has a right of access to it. Ownership and access are separate concepts, which is why a patient can obtain a copy but cannot demand the original or its destruction.

Destruction is not a patient decision precisely because the custodian has a regulatory obligation to retain the file. A patient asking a clinic to delete their record is asking the practitioner to commit professional misconduct, which is the unglamorous reason such requests are declined.

Declining deletion does not limit access, and the access right is broad. Patients are entitled to a copy of their own record, and clinics are expected to make patients aware of how to obtain one.

How to Get Access to Older Medical Records

To access older physiotherapy records, contact the clinic that provided the treatment, submit a written request identifying yourself and the approximate dates of care, and expect to receive a copy rather than the original file. A reasonable fee for copying and administration may apply.

Applying early helps, since older files may be in off-site storage and take longer to retrieve. If the clinic has closed, the records should have passed to another physiotherapist acting as Health Information Custodian, and the College of Physiotherapists of Ontario can sometimes assist in locating where a former registrant’s records went.

Records held by physiotherapy in Markham practices work the same way as anywhere else in the province, and former patients of our clinic can request your records directly. How far back a request can reach depends entirely on retention.

Can You Request Medical Records From 20 Years Ago?

You can request records from 20 or 30 years ago, but whether they still exist depends on the retention period, and physiotherapy records from that long ago may lawfully have been destroyed. A 20-year-old adult file is a decade past the Ontario minimum.

Past the minimum does not guarantee destruction. Many clinics retain longer than required, electronic records are cheap to store indefinitely, and paediatric files from 20 years ago may still be inside their retention window if the patient was young at the time. It is always worth asking rather than assuming.

Assuming the worst is particularly unwarranted for hospital records, which follow different rules and are often held far longer, and for physician records, which sit under a separate college with its own requirements. A request costs nothing but a letter.

How Far Back Are Medical Records Stored?

Physiotherapy records in Ontario are guaranteed to exist for at least 10 years from the later of the last encounter or the patient’s eighteenth birthday, and anything older survives only at the discretion of the practice that held it. Ten years is the floor, not the ceiling.

The ceiling varies enormously between practices. Some clinics keep electronic records indefinitely because storage is inexpensive and the litigation window extends to 15 years. Others destroy on a strict schedule to reduce their privacy exposure, which is also a defensible position.

Both positions are defensible, and neither is announced publicly, so the only reliable way to find out is to ask the clinic directly. Patients sometimes want the opposite of a copy, which is worth addressing plainly.

Can You Get Medical History Erased?

You cannot have your physiotherapy or medical history erased, because custodians are legally required to retain records for the full retention period, but you can request a correction where information is inaccurate or incomplete. Correction rights exist; deletion rights do not.

Deletion is unavailable even by agreement, since the obligation sits with the regulator rather than with the patient. What the correction process does allow is having an error addressed, and the standard method preserves the original entry while documenting the change, who made it, and when.

Documenting rather than overwriting is deliberate, because a record that can be silently altered is worthless as evidence for either party. If a correction request is refused, patients can require that a statement of disagreement be attached to the file. Given all of this, keeping your own copies is sensible.

What Medical Records Should You Keep Yourself?

Keep your own copies of anything that would be difficult or impossible to reconstruct: imaging reports, surgical records, specialist consultations, immunization history, and documentation of any injury connected to an insurance claim or legal matter. Routine appointment receipts matter far less.

Mattering less does not mean discarding everything, and a simple approach works well: keep summary documents and reports permanently, keep anything related to a claim until that claim is closed and the limitation period has passed, and let routine paperwork go after the tax year it relates to. Scanning removes the storage problem entirely.

The storage problem is the usual reason people discard things they later need. Since clinic retention is finite and clinics close, a personal copy of the genuinely irreplaceable documents is the only version guaranteed to still exist in twenty years.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Long Do Doctors Legally Have to Keep Medical Records in Canada?

Retention periods for physicians are set provincially by each medical regulatory college, and commonly run 10 years for adults, or 10 years past the age of majority for patients treated as children. Hospitals follow their own statutory requirements, which are often longer. Anyone needing a definitive answer should contact the relevant college or institution directly.

Is the Retention Rule the Same in Every Province?

The structure is similar across several provinces but the details are set independently. Alberta physiotherapists, for example, retain clinical and financial records for 10 years after the last date of service, or 10 years past a minor’s eighteenth birthday, which matches Ontario’s framework. Practitioners must confirm the requirement with their own provincial college rather than relying on another province’s rule.

What Happens If a Physiotherapist Destroys Records Too Early?

Destroying records before the retention period expires is a professional conduct matter and can result in a College investigation and disciplinary finding. The College of Physiotherapists of Ontario has published a case in which a former registrant could not produce a patient record because it had been destroyed after a clinic closure. The obligation survives retirement, relocation, and resignation from the College.

Do Virtual or Telehealth Sessions Have Different Record Requirements?

Virtual sessions follow the same retention requirements as in-person care, with one addition: the record must document that the session was provided virtually. Any recordings, messages, or uploaded images that form part of care are also part of the record. Format never changes the obligation.

How Long Should Equipment Records Be Kept?

Equipment records should be kept for 5 years from the date of the last entry, even where the equipment has since been discarded. This is a shorter period than the 10 years required for clinical and financial records. Clinics using modality equipment should keep calibration and maintenance documentation on that schedule.

The Bottom Line

In Ontario, physiotherapy records must be kept for at least 10 years from the later of the last patient encounter or the date the patient reached or would have reached 18, and that applies to clinical and financial records alike, in every medium and every practice setting. The seven-year figure that dominates search results is American and does not apply here. Because the Limitations Act allows proceedings up to 15 years after an alleged act or omission, the College itself notes that practitioners may wish to retain records longer than the minimum, which is worth building into a clinic’s own policy rather than leaving to chance. Custody obligations survive retirement, relocation, and clinic closure, and destruction at the end of the period must be permanent, secure, and logged.

For patients, the practical summary is shorter: you have a right to a copy of your record, you cannot have it erased but you can have errors corrected, and anything older than a decade may lawfully be gone, so keep your own copies of what would be hard to replace. Former patients of KC Rehab can contact us for a copy of their file, and anyone weighing a retention decision in their own practice should confirm it with their regulatory college rather than with a search result. If you are looking for treatment rather than paperwork, you are welcome to book an assessment.