Drowning in Medical Records: The Math
PI paralegals keep posting the same sentence: I am drowning in medical records. It is a capacity problem, not loyalty. Run the files-per-paralegal math.
Three posts from personal injury paralegals on r/paralegal in a single week. Different people, different firms, same sentence.
"I am drowning in medical records."
One is at $58k with one week of PTO and no benefits. Another is trying to move to any practice area that is not PI. None of them said the work was too hard. They said the volume was.
Firm owners read this as a loyalty problem. It is a capacity problem.
Medical record retrieval is the highest-volume, lowest-judgment task in a PI file. It is also the task most firms hand to the person they most want to keep. Then they are surprised when that person leaves next year and takes the file knowledge with them.
The math is not complicated. Replacing a PI paralegal costs you the recruiting spend, a ramp period where files sit still, and whatever the departing person knew that never got written down.
So we built a calculator. Enter your open file count and your paralegal headcount. It gives you your files-per-paralegal number and what a replacement actually costs when someone taps out.
If the number is ugly, the answer is not a better job posting. It is taking the volume work off the desk of the person you cannot afford to lose.
Run your numbers with the free Paralegal Capacity Calculator. If the result is over the line, Paralegal Teams take the volume work first.