Priced by the hour vs. priced by the decision.
An offshore summary at $25 an hour and an in-house legal nurse consultant both do real work behind the scenes, but neither one gives you a physician's judgment on the merits. Here is where the lines actually fall.
Every option below works behind the scenes, before anyone is disclosed. So the question isn't who's cheapest per hour, it's which one produces a decision you can act on: whether the case is real, where it's won or lost, and which expert to put on it. A stack of organized pages you still have to interpret hasn't answered that. It has just relocated the work.
| Offshore summary$25–50 / hour | In-house LNCSalaried | Physician merit reviewAI-MEDLAW | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you actually get | Chronology & bulk summary | Organized records, triage, missing-record flags | Merit & causation decision, plus the case theory |
| Physician judgment on the standard of careone physician, any specialty | ✕Bulk output, not clinical judgment | ✕Outside a nurse's scope of practice | ✓A board-certified physician's read across any specialty, anchored to that field's guidelines |
| Tells you where the case is won or lost | ✕Data, not judgment | ~Sometimes | ✓That's the product |
| Sources & briefs your testifying expertphysician to physician | ✕No | ✕No | ✓Finds the right specialty, frames the questions |
| Independent of the firm's existing theory | ~Arm's length, but no judgment to offer | ✕In-house, invested in the theory | ✓Outside the firm, no stake in the answer |
| Priced by | The hour, you pay for volume | Salary, fixed overhead | The decision it changes |
A consulting physician never appears on your witness list, and the read never surfaces, that's the point. The others are priced by the hour. This is priced by the one decision the case turns on.
Put a physician on the merits.
Physician-led merit review, causation analysis, and records gap assessment, delivered with the clinical depth these cases require. All inquiries handled with strict confidentiality.