What Medical Records Review Should Cost a PI Firm

This series has covered what records work is (chronologies versus summaries), how long it honestly takes (the benchmarks post), and what it surfaces (the gaps, the prior history, the missing providers). One question remains, and it's the one that decides whether any of it gets delegated: what should it cost?

I publish my rates, so this post can do something most vendor content can't — show the actual math. Worked examples at real numbers, the drivers that move them, and the comparison every PI firm should run before deciding records work isn't worth paying for. (House rules: figures reflect my current published rates — $65/hour standard, $55/hour on volume retainer — and the planning benchmarks from earlier in this series. Every file is scoped individually; treat these as the math's shape, not a quote.)

Three worked examples

The small file. Soft-tissue MVA, ~150 pages, three providers. Records summary at the benchmark range (3–5 hours): roughly $195–325. This is the file where attorneys most often skip formal review — and where the skip is most defensible, honestly, if someone has still verified completeness. The summary here isn't buying analysis so much as buying certainty that page 90 doesn't mention an urgent-care visit nobody requested.

The typical file. Our recurring fictional MVA: ~400 pages, six providers, contested causation. Chronology at benchmark (10–16 hours): roughly $650–1,040 standard rate, $550–880 on retainer. This is the heart of the practice, so anchor the number against what it sits inside: a case whose value is priced in five or six figures, whose central disputes (gap, prior history, objective-findings line) live in these records, and whose demand, mediation posture, and expert work all build on the timeline. The chronology is typically the cheapest document in the case that touches its value directly.

The large file. 1,000+ pages, ten-plus providers, significant prior history, litigation-track. Chronology at 25–40+ hours: roughly $1,625–2,600+. Real money — and the file where the alternative math gets loudest, because this is also the file an attorney cannot personally read properly without sacrificing a week of practice, and the file where unread records cost the most (see the warning-signs post's mediation scenario).

What moves the number (and what should worry you if it doesn't)

The drivers, all covered in the benchmarks post, all visible at scoping: page volume, provider count, production condition (the 900-page unsorted PDF costs real sorting hours), deliverable type (the chronology premium is structural), prior-history integration, and turnaround compression. A quote that doesn't ask about these isn't a better price — it's an unexamined one, and the benchmarks post told you what an implausibly low records quote means: shallow reading, which is worse than none because it certifies a clean file that was never actually checked.

Two cost-shape notes worth repeating from earlier posts: combinations are cheaper than sequences (a summary generated from a finished chronology costs a fraction of either alone — say so upfront if the case may need both), and the records-request pipeline (the tracking system post) is billed as the five-minute-increment process work it is, not as review hours.

The comparison that actually decides it

The $0 option doesn't exist. Records on a contested file will be reviewed by someone; the only question is whose hour pays for it.The comparison that matters

The attorney's own hour, priced at billing rate or opportunity cost (the caseload-ceiling math): a 12-hour chronology performed personally is $3,000–4,800 of attorney inventory, plus the strategic work that week that didn't happen. The in-house paralegal's hour, where one exists with capacity — the right answer at volume, per the contract-vs-hire post, and spiky records demand is precisely what overflows it. Or the contract hour, at the published rate, only when the work exists.

And the fourth option, the honest villain of this post: nobody's hour — the records skimmed late, the gap found by the defense first, the file that walked into mediation unread. That option's price doesn't appear on any invoice, which is the only reason it ever looks affordable.

How to buy this well

Whether from me or anyone: scope before price (pages, providers, condition, deliverable, deadline — then the number); benchmarks as your sanity check in both directions; completeness verification included or it isn't a review; and the deliverable specified by name — this series gave you the vocabulary precisely so "summarize the records" never buys the wrong document again.

My rates are on the pricing page, the benchmarks are a post away, and the math above is reproducible on your own files — which is the entire point of publishing it.

Questions attorneys ask

Educational content for legal professionals — not legal advice. All figures illustrative; files quoted individually.