Under OSHA regulations, how long must the medical record for each employee be preserved?

• A. 30 years
• B. 5 years
• C. 10 years
• D. 50 years

Answer: (A)

OSHA requires keeping each employee’s medical records for the duration of their employment plus 30 years. This long retention accounts for the possibility of health issues that can show up many years after exposure and ensures records are available for regulatory, clinical, and potential future claims. The five-year requirement you might hear about applies to the OSHA injury/illness logs itself, not to individual medical records. Ten years or fifty years are not the standard retention periods set by OSHA for medical records.