As the adage goes, time is money. This holds more true for businesses than for almost anything else, with their ultimate objective being to generate income. Even activities that incur costs are expected to result in even larger returns at some point down the line.
Therein lies the crux of the saying — any time spent on a business activity is ultimately measured in the very tangible, quantifiable metric of dollars, and time that isn’t actively generating income is a cost.
So goes the dilemma involved in assessing time spent by law practices on record retrieval. On the one hand, the activity is an intrinsic and unavoidable part of the process of litigation, and therefore cannot be eliminated. On the other, it is an almost purely clerical task, with little to no creative thinking or problem solving necessary. This makes it a poor use of the time of experts with high levels of legal knowledge. However, legal practices often put little to no thought into their approach to record retrieval, with many claiming to have never considered analyzing the costs associated with the process.
By outsourcing this task to specialists like Record Retrieval Solutions, a practice can not only minimize the amount of time spent on the activity, but also reallocate it toward potentially more lucrative activities. Here are just some of the factors to consider when making the decision to go down this route.
Volume
The first question you must ask yourself is whether your current staff and infrastructure are equipped to deal with the volume of record requests your practice deals with. If the volume of requests is such that additional resources would need to be pulled in, you need to consider whether outsourcing the task would be more cost-effective. Keep in mind that you can take better advantage of a third-party specialist’s efficiency when you have a higher volume of requests.
Logistics
The efficiency of third-party specialists leads to greater cost savings the more complex the logistical requirements of your requests are. For example, the greater the number of providers that receive your record requests, the greater the number of individual invoices that would need to be processed. Thus, the material cost of outsourcing is better justified when more individual providers are involved. Likewise, if tracking the process of a request is important, a third-party specialist is better equipped to provide a snapshot of information promptly.
Speed
If your internal teams are having trouble keeping ideal turnaround times, outsourcing might be your best bet. By outsourcing record retrieval, you benefit from both economies of scale and specialized operational processes. A third-party provider’s specialists are able to process a far greater number of requests than most internal teams. And time saved from processing requests is money saved.
Space
Keeping record retrieval in-house also means performing record maintenance in-house. Paper records can quickly accumulate space in an office, and add complexity to the process of pulling up records as they’re needed. Third-party specialists often employ paperless record vaults, which eliminates the need to devote space to housing records and speeds up the retrieval process
Infrastructure
Because record retrieval is so clerical, it benefits greatly from advances in automation. However, acquiring the software and hardware necessary for such automation can be costly and require investment into dedicated training for their upkeep and maintenance. Outsourcing record retrieval will enable you to benefit from these efficiencies without having to make big capital investments.
If, after considering the above, you realize that outsourcing records retrieval is the right move for your practice, then the way forward is clear. Why settle for anyone other than the best? Call Record Retrieval Solutions now and get all your retrieval needs catered to.