The True Cost of Handling your Record Retrieval In-House

 

Numerous times 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?

First, 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 scenario of retrieving records and billing statements:

Processing Paperwork for Request: 15 minutes

Faxing or Mailing Paperwork: 20 minutes

Following up with the Provider: 45 minutes

Paying & Tracking the Invoice: 15 minutes

Reviewing the Records: 30 minutes

Total: 1hr 55 minutes. Cost at $14 hourly rate + $4 for taxes, equipment, operating, insurance/benefits

Total Cost: $34.50

This is a best case scenario of how the entire process plays out and the actual time you will spend on getting records from a 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 a more likely worst case scenario:

Processing Paperwork for Request: 15 minutes

Faxing or Mailing Paperwork: 20 minutes

Initial Follow Up with the Provider: 15 minutes

Resending Paperwork: 10 minutes

Following up with the Provider: 10 minutes x 6 calls= 60 minutes

Paying & Tracking the Invoice: 15 minutes

Reviewing the Records: 30 minutes

Incorrect Documents Sent/No Certified Page or Affidavit: 60 minutes

Total: 3 hrs 45 minutes Cost at $14 hourly rate + $4 for taxes, equipment, operating costs, insurance/benefits

Total Cost: $67.50

At $34.50 best case, and $67.50 worst case scenario, these are your ranges for your record retrieval costs. Not only are your labor costs incredibly high, your turn around time for getting records to get the cases closed increases. 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, you also get paid faster and receive the money back that you likely fronted for their case. Happy clients, Save time, Quicker cash flow, more cases for your firm: all of these are benefits of outsourcing your record retrieval…why is your firm still handling your record retrieval in house?