Help

Every case is made up of one or more retrieval locations — one per provider you asked Gulfstream to get records from. Each location moves through five stages on its own schedule:

1. Request received — Gulfstream has logged the request. Nothing has gone out yet.
2. Forms in progress — Gulfstream is preparing the paperwork the provider requires (a request letter, a subpoena, an authorization form) before anything can be sent.
3. Records in retrieval — the request is with the provider. This is where a location can sit for a while, and where it can also carry a tag like "On hold" or "Needs your signed authorization" if something is stopping it — see Waiting on you, below.
4. Records received — Gulfstream has the records from this provider.
5. Complete — nothing further will happen at this location. This also covers locations that will never produce records (no records existed, or the request was withdrawn or cancelled) — "complete" means resolved, not necessarily "records in hand".

A case shows the stage of whichever of its locations is furthest behind, so a case with nine locations "Complete" and one still in retrieval will show as still in retrieval — that one location is genuinely where the case stands.

What "blocked" means: a location is blocked when something outside the normal flow is stopping it — most often a provider dispute (a motion to quash) or an internal hold. Gulfstream is actively working it; the reason shown on the location is the real reason, not a placeholder.

The Waiting on you page collects everything, across every case, that Gulfstream cannot move forward without something from you. It exists so you do not have to open every case to find out where you are the holdup. Three things can put an item on that list:

• A location needs your signed authorization. Gulfstream needs a signed release before it can request records from that specific provider, and cannot proceed until it has one.
• A location is waiting on a reply from you. Gulfstream sent you something about it — a question, a form, a clarification — and is waiting to hear back.(A third status you may also see is labelled "Pending - SOA" internally. It also means Gulfstream is waiting on you, but this help page is not confident enough in what "SOA" stands for to describe it more specifically without risking telling you the wrong thing. If a location shows this reason and you are not sure what is needed, ask Gulfstream — see below.)
• Gulfstream asked a question you have not answered yet, or a share you sent to an expert is about to expire and you may want to extend it.

Items are sorted oldest first — something that has been waiting 90 days is a different conversation than something waiting 3, and the list is built to surface that difference rather than bury it.

If you do not provide what is needed, that one location simply stays where it is. Gulfstream cannot request records from a provider without the paperwork the provider itself requires, so the location will not move on its own — it is genuinely waiting on you, not on Gulfstream.

"Send to expert" lets you share records — one document, one location's full set, or an entire case — with someone outside the portal: an expert witness, a colleague, or anyone else who needs a one-time look. This is the most consequential thing this product does, because it deliberately moves protected health information outside Gulfstream's own systems, at your direction. Here is exactly what happens:

1. You choose what to share and who to share it with — a specific document, a location, or the whole case — and whether the recipient may only view it or may also download it.
2. You set an expiry. The default is 14 days; you can choose up to 90 days, but never longer. After that date the link stops working on its own — no one has to remember to turn it off.
3. You sign an attestation — a short, specific statement that you are authorized to disclose exactly this material to exactly this recipient, for this matter. This is not a formality: it is the record that you, not Gulfstream, made the decision to send these records outside the firm and Gulfstream's own systems, and it is what the recipient's access is legally grounded in.
4. The recipient gets an email with a one-time link. The link alone is not enough — opening it requires a one-time passcode (OTP) that is emailed separately when they try to use it. Anyone who only has the link cannot get in without also controlling that recipient's inbox.
5. Some shares need Gulfstream's sign-off first. If the recipient's email address is not at your firm's own domain, the share is held for Gulfstream staff to approve before any invitation or passcode goes out. That is a policy safeguard, not a delay you caused.
6. Every view is watermarked with the recipient's email, the date and time, and the case number, so a copy that leaks further is traceable back to who saw it and when.
7. You can revoke it instantly, from the Shares page, at any time before or after it has been used. Revoking is immediate and cannot be undone — if the recipient still needs access, you would create a new share.

Your Shares page shows the full history of every share you have created: whether it is active, expired, revoked, or awaiting Gulfstream's approval, and a log of every time it was viewed. A share you did not create you cannot see, and the recipient never gets a portal account of their own — the share is the only access they have, and it is exactly as wide as you made it.

Open the case and either post a comment on the case as a whole, or on one specific location if your question is about that provider or that piece of the retrieval. Attaching it to the right location means the right person at Gulfstream sees it without you having to say which provider you mean.

Everything in that comment thread is written knowing both sides can read it — it is kept completely separate from Gulfstream's own internal working notes, which are never shown here. If Gulfstream has asked you something and you have not replied yet, it will also appear on the Waiting on you page.

A reply by email is never used to relay the substance of a note — case and note content never leaves the portal by email, only a notice that something new is waiting for you to read here.

Occasionally you will see a document listed on a case with no working download link. That is not a permissions problem — it means the record of that file exists, but the actual file has not yet been made available to this system to serve to you. Gulfstream can still get you a copy directly in the meantime if you need it before that is resolved; ask through the case's comment thread.

You only ever see cases your firm has been granted access to, and within a case, only what Gulfstream has published for client viewing — internal working notes, and Gulfstream's own internal status detail, are never surfaced here.

Gulfstream staff can, with the right permissions, view the portal exactly as you see it — for troubleshooting or to help you with something. When they do, a bright banner marks the session as "Viewing as [firm] — read only" for the whole time they're in it: staff cannot take any action on your behalf this way — they cannot post a comment as you, set your priority case, or create or revoke a share in your name. That session is also recorded against your account, the same as if you had signed in yourself.

Every time records are opened — by you, by a share recipient, or by Gulfstream staff — it is logged with who, when, and where from. You can see your own recent activity on the My profile page.