Free. Runs in your browser.
How long will it take to review this chart?
Turn a page count into a review-time range and a cost. Handwriting, duplication, and complexity all change the answer.
Records review time estimator
Estimate how long a file review takes. You set the mix and the rate. IMECore does the maths.
Blended rate for the reviewer. Use 488 to match the Doctors of BC record review rate.
Estimated review time
12.3 to 19.9 h
Typical 15.0 h at 33.4 pages per hour · Cost $3,063.97 to $4,984.05 at $250.00 per hour
Breakdown
- Effective pages per hour
- 40.8 / 33.4 / 25.1
- Review hours
- 12.3 / 15.0 / 19.9
- Estimated cost
- $3,063.97 / $3,738.04 / $4,984.05
How this estimate is built
Rates adjust for mix, duplication, and complexity. Heavy duplication and psychiatric or neuropsych files reduce throughput. Low assumes faster reading, high assumes slower.
- SEAK 2024: about 6.5 total examiner hours per IME across review, exam, and report
- Doctors of BC 2024: record review $122 per 15 minutes, so $488 per hour
Set the rate to 488 to price at the Doctors of BC scale. Your contract rate may differ.
How to use it
Four steps
- 1
Enter the page count
Use the real total, including duplicates. Duplication is a separate input.
- 2
Describe the document mix
Handwritten clinical notes take far longer per page than typed reports.
- 3
Set the complexity
A single injury reads faster than a multi-system or psychiatric file.
- 4
Add your reviewer rate
The tool converts hours into a cost so you can price or budget the work.
Background
What the numbers mean
Why page count alone is a bad estimate
Two 600-page files can take two hours or ten. What moves the number is how much of it is handwritten, how much of it repeats, and how many body systems the questions touch. A discharge summary sent four times is one document, not four.
What the published rates imply
The Doctors of BC fee guide bills physician record review at $122 per 15 minutes, or about $488 per hour. The SEAK 2024 survey found about 6.5 hours of total examiner time per IME across review, examination, and report. New York State's procurement schedule includes 200 pages of records in the base IME fee and charges $1.00 USD per page beyond that, which tells you the state treats 200 pages as the normal load.
Where the time actually goes
Most reviewers spend the first block sorting rather than reading: putting documents in date order, working out which provider wrote what, and finding the duplicates. That is clerical work billed at a clinical rate. Sorting the file before it reaches the reviewer is the cheapest hour you will ever save.
FAQ
Questions people ask
How many pages can a reviewer read per hour?
For typed, well-organized records, 80 to 150 pages an hour is realistic. For mixed handwritten clinical notes, 25 to 50. For a dense psychiatric or neuropsychological file, less again.
What does record review cost per hour in Canada?
The Doctors of BC guide for uninsured services recommends $122 per 15 minutes of physician record review, which is about $488 an hour. A paralegal or medical summarizer costs far less.
Does deduplication really change the number?
Yes. Heavy duplication is common in files assembled from several providers. Removing exact duplicates often cuts effective page count by a fifth or more.
Can I use this to price a fixed-fee review?
Use the high end of the range, not the middle. Estimates are optimistic and rework is not free.
More tools
Related calculators
- Free tool
IME cost estimator
Estimate the fee range for an independent medical examination by province, specialty, and report type. Built from published fee guides.
Read - Free tool
Bates numbering generator
Paste your sources and page counts. Get the Bates range for each one, plus warnings for duplicates and overflow.
Read - Free tool
Report turnaround planner
Enter the exam date and the date you need the report. See the slack, the critical path, and the latest workable exam date.
Read
Stop doing this by hand for every file
IMECore runs the same calculation on every case, and keeps the answer on the file.