Can I get my late mother's Israeli medical records to support a challenge to her will?

A capacity challenge stands or falls on the clinical file. Whether the testator was oriented in time and place when the will was signed, what the treating physician recorded three weeks earlier, whether a cognitive assessment was ever done: that is the evidence, and none of it is in the family's hands. Heirs abroad usually assume the hospital or the kupat holim will release the file to the next of kin on production of a death certificate. Israeli law says the opposite, and the mistake costs weeks at precisely the point when the probate timetable is running.

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Detailed Answer

Section 17 of the Patient's Rights Law 5756-1996 requires the caregiver and the institution to maintain a medical record, and Section 18 gives the patient the right to receive the medical information held about him. That right is personal. It is not an asset that passes with the estate, and death does not convert the heirs into the patient. Sitting behind it is Section 19, which imposes the duty of medical confidentiality, and Section 20(a), which sets out the closed list of circumstances in which a caregiver or an institution may nonetheless pass information to another: where the patient consented, where a legal duty to disclose exists, where the disclosure is to another caregiver for the purposes of treatment, and by decision of an ethics committee, the body established under Section 24. Nothing in that list reads "a relative who asks nicely". The three routes that actually work are therefore narrow. First, written authority given by the deceased during his lifetime, which occasionally exists in a family that planned for this. Second, an estate administrator appointed under the Succession Law 5725-1965, who stands in the estate's shoes and can seek the file in that capacity. Third, and by far the most common, an order of the Family Court in the proceedings where the will is being challenged, which supplies the legal duty to disclose that Section 20(a) contemplates. Where the argument is capacity, the substantive provision you are building towards is Section 26 of the Succession Law, which voids a will made by a person who at the time did not know the nature of a will.

Sequence is what non-resident heirs get wrong. The disclosure application belongs inside the probate dispute, so the objection has to be lodged first. An objection to the grant is filed with the Inheritance Registrar under Section 67 of the Succession Law within the period fixed in the published notice, and once it is filed the file moves to the Family Court, where the disclosure motion is made. Trying to obtain records before there is a proceeding leaves you with no legal duty to point the hospital at, and the institution is right to refuse. Two more points are worth knowing. A healthcare proxy appointed under Section 16 of the Patient's Rights Law, and an enduring power of attorney, both lapse on death, so a relative who lawfully saw the file last year has no continuing right to it. And the institution's patient rights officer under Section 25 is the correct correspondent for the mechanics of production once an order exists, rather than the ward or the treating doctor. From abroad the practical requirements are modest but unforgiving on timing: an Israeli lawyer needs a specific power of attorney authenticated before a notary and apostilled where you sign it, and Israeli notarial authentication of a signature is fixed at NIS 197 for the first signatory and NIS 77 for each additional one under the Notaries Regulations (Service Fees) 5738-1978. Budget NIS 5,000 to NIS 12,000 for a contested disclosure application, and allow two to four months from filing to production where the institution takes a neutral position. Where the records you want are your own rather than a deceased relative's, the position is entirely different and much simpler; that is covered in our answer on getting your Israeli medical records from abroad.

In Practice: Section 18 of the Patient's Rights Law 5756-1996 gives the right to medical information to the patient alone, and Section 19 keeps the duty of confidentiality alive after death, with disclosure limited to the closed list in Section 20(a). Heirs get there through an order of the Family Court in the will dispute, which is opened by an objection to the Inheritance Registrar under Section 67 of the Succession Law 5725-1965 within the period fixed in the published notice. Production is then handled through the institution's patient rights officer under Section 25. From abroad the power of attorney costs NIS 197 for the first signatory under the Notaries Regulations (Service Fees) 5738-1978, a contested application runs NIS 5,000 to NIS 12,000, and two to four months should be allowed from filing to production.

When to Consult a Lawyer

• The objection period is running. Disclosure is available inside the probate dispute and effectively not outside it, so missing the Section 67 window closes the door on the records as well as on the challenge.
• The will was signed close to a hospital admission or a change in medication. That is where the clinical record does real work, and the disclosure request has to be drawn tightly enough that the court will make the order rather than refuse it as a fishing expedition.
• One of the heirs already holds part of the file. Records obtained informally by a relative who was present at the time raise questions of admissibility and of completeness, and how they are introduced affects the weight the court gives them.

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Speak With an Israeli Attorney

We lodge the objection within the period, apply to the Family Court for production of the clinical file, and instruct an Israeli expert to read the record against the date the will was signed.

Contact us for a confidential initial consultation.