Outsourcing Record Retrieval Pays Off

Quite often attorneys, paralegals, and office managers tell us, “We handle our records in house,” not even giving a second thought to the actual financial cost that comes with this. The typical response is not to stop and think, “How much is handling our record retrieval in house costing us?” We’re here to tell you, outsourcing record retrieval really pays off!

Time is the biggest resource that is being wasted. As an attorney, you can charge $200, $300, $500 or even $1,000 an hour for your services. Your time that is scheduled with clients and spent working on their cases is money for you. Why are you spending time calling a hospital to sit on hold for ten minutes, just to find out that you have to resend your original request because you sent it to the wrong place the first time? At this point, you assign the record retrieval tasks to your paralegals or office managers. Let’s breakdown this best-case scenario of retrieving records and billing statements:

 

In House Record Retrieval

Processing Paperwork for Request	15 minutes
Faxing or Mailing Paperwork	20 minutes
Follow Up with the Provider (3 follow-ups at 10 minutes per follow up)	30 minutes
Paying & Tracking the Invoice	15 minutes
Reviewing & Scanning Records	30 minutes
Total	1 hour 50 minutes
Legal Assistant US Avg: $15.30/hour	$28.05
Taxes, Equipment, Operating, Insurance, Benefits: 30%	$8.42
Total	$36.47

 

This is a best-case scenario of how the entire process plays out and the actual time your staff spends on getting records from the provider. Mind you, this is the best case scenario. What happens if the request is lost by the provider? Documents are incorrect? The provider takes 10 phone calls before they will send the records? Let’s take a look at additional tasks and issues that arise that can take up hours of time:

 

Tasks Requiring Additional Time

Re-submitting a Request	10 minutes	$2.55
Resending Paperwork	10 minutes	$2.55
Each Additional Follow Up	10 minutes	$2.55
Receive Wrong Records Reach Back Out to Get Corrected	30 minutes	$7.65
Affidavit (filling out, quality checking, etc)	30 minutes	$7.65
Setting Up Courier Service	30 minutes	$7.65
Coordinating Courier Service (average 3 visits to provider)	60 minutes	$15.30

 

If you have to re-submit the request, have 6 extra follow up calls, and have to reach back out to get an affidavit corrected you’ve just added $26 of expenses. By using Record Grabber, all tasks having to do with managing the retrieval process fall on us. The only tasks needed to be done by the firm are submitting the request and providing us with any necessary documents. Easy as that!

 

Outsourcing Record Retrieval

Submit Request to Record Grabber	1 minute
Download Records from Portal	1 minute
Total	2 minutes
Legal Assistant US Avg: $15.30	$1.00
Taxes, Equipment, Operating, Insurance, Benefits: 30%	$0.30
Record Grabber Fee	$35.00
Total	$36.30

 

At $36.47 best case retrieving records on your own versus $36.30 if outsourcing through Record Grabber, why waste the time? Not only are your labor costs incredibly high, your turnaround time for getting records to closing your cases increase. What would closing all of your cases out 3 or 4 weeks earlier for your firm do? Not only will your clients be happy that their case is closed faster, but you also get paid faster and receive the money back that you likely fronted for their case.

Have happy clients, save time, get paid faster, handle more cases: all of these are benefits of outsourcing your record retrieval. Why is your firm still handling your record retrieval in house?

What are you waiting for!? Get started saving time and money with Record Grabber today.

 

Source: https://www.indeed.com/salaries/Legal-Assistant-Salaries