Tavrn and Chart Squad both get medical records into an injury case, and they take different legal routes to do it. Tavrn requests records as your firm's agent, under an authorization your client signs. Chart Squad has your client request their own records into a personal health record account, then share them with you.
The route matters more than the feature list. It sets what the records cost, how long they take, and whether your firm can move a request forward without the client.
Firms weighing this choice should start with where their requests stall today.
Table of Contents
- Tavrn vs. Chart Squad: Key Differences at a Glance
- Two Different Legal Pathways to the Same Records
- Who Drives the Request
- Where the Records Land
- What Each Platform Costs a Firm
- What Happens After the Records Arrive
- Which Platform Fits Your Firm
Tavrn vs. Chart Squad: Key Differences at a Glance
The core difference is who submits the request. Tavrn submits on the firm's behalf as a third party, using a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) authorization signed by the client. Chart Squad supports the client in exercising their own right of access to their records.
Chart Squad details above are as published on chartsquad.com, accessed July 2026.
Two Different Legal Pathways to the Same Records
Federal privacy law gives patients a right to their own medical records. Under the HIPAA right of access, a provider must act on a request within 30 days and can take one 30-day extension only with written notice explaining the delay. Fees for that request are limited to a reasonable, cost-based rate.
A law firm requesting records for a client is not exercising that right. It is making a third-party request under a signed HIPAA authorization, and in Ciox Health v. Azar a federal court held in 2020 that the patient fee cap does not reach those requests. Attorney-directed requests run on state record fee schedules instead, which are often higher.
Chart Squad is built on the first pathway. Its own materials state that it is not a records retrieval service; it is a personal health record that helps patients exercise their right of access. Tavrn operates on the second pathway, submitting as your firm's agent.
Which route a request runs on sets the fee schedule, and it sets what happens when a provider pushes back. The compliance rules differ accordingly.
Who Drives the Request
A patient-driven model needs the patient. Before a single request goes out, your client has to register for an account, complete identity verification, and stay engaged enough to share what comes back. Chart Squad manages the correspondence from there, and it will escalate a non-compliant provider, including helping your client file a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
Every one of those steps is a point where a case can stall for reasons that have nothing to do with the provider. Clients change phone numbers, miss verification emails, and go quiet for weeks after intake. When that happens, your paralegal is no longer chasing a records custodian. She is chasing your client, and she has no way to move the request forward without them.
Tavrn needs one thing from the client: a signature on the authorization. After that, the firm controls the request. Tavrn's agents navigate phone trees, work through provider objections using memory of previous calls with that facility, pay required invoices, and pull documents from connected networks, continuously, including nights and weekends. Firms cut retrieval times by up to 70% this way, and follow-up never depends on whether a client picks up.
Levine Benjamin runs 800 to 1,000 record requests a month. At that volume, the firm reported 3x faster turnaround and 90% less paperwork after adopting Tavrn. Reported client outcomes, not guaranteed results. Volume like that only works when submission and follow-up sit with the firm rather than with a thousand individual clients.
Where the Records Land
Chart Squad delivers records into the client's personal health record, and only there. Its materials are explicit that records are never emailed and must be accessed by logging into the secure account. The client then controls access and shares onward with whoever they choose, including your firm. Chart Squad tracks its calls, written correspondence, and work completed inside that account, so the client can see what has happened on their request.
That design gives the client durable control of their own health information, which has value beyond any single case.
For a firm, it means the file arrives one step removed. Someone still has to get records out of the client's account and into the matter, confirm nothing is missing, and organize what came through. Tavrn delivers into the matter directly, tagged and organized, with live status and a secure transcript of every provider interaction kept as an audit trail. When a request stalls, a paralegal can read what the custodian said and fix a rejected authorization the same afternoon.
What Each Platform Costs a Firm
The number a firm sees first when researching Chart Squad is low, for a legitimate reason. The personal health record account is free to patients, with no joining fee, monthly fee, or contract, and Chart Squad reports an average national provider fee of $6.50 or less per request. That figure reflects the patient rate available on the pathway it uses.
It is also not a service fee. The $6.50 is what a provider charges to release the records, and both platforms pass provider charges through to whoever is paying. Tavrn's pass-through runs at state schedule rates, because attorney-directed requests fall outside the patient cap. Reading $6.50 as the cost of the service compares a provider charge against a platform charge.
Neither company publishes what a law firm pays. Chart Squad routes professional services and AI summaries to a request-pricing form, and Tavrn quotes its flat per-request fee directly, so a firm comparing the two on cost is comparing two quotes rather than two rate cards.
That leaves a timing question that no quote shows. Chart Squad's own materials describe the remedy when a provider refuses to honor the patient rate: notify the client, then offer help filing an OCR complaint. That protects the client's rights, and it means the record waits. Against a filing deadline, a fee that arrives on schedule and a lower fee that arrives after an agency complaint are not the same cost. Firms modeling retrieval spend by state should price the paralegal hours alongside the invoice.
What Happens After the Records Arrive
Chart Squad does not stop at delivery. Its AI Medical Record Summaries work on records obtained through its platform or from anywhere else, and it claims accuracy better than medical experts, speeds around 20 times faster, and the ability to read scanned images inside a PDF. For a firm that only needs records condensed, that is a capable tool, and it is available without onboarding.
Tavrn's workflow continues past the summary:
- Medical chronologies are delivered in under 24 hours, hyperlinked to source pages, flagging diagnoses, treatments, gaps in care, and pre-existing conditions. Building one by hand costs days of paralegal time, and a summary is not a chronology.
- Missing Bills and Records Reports identify coverage gaps, showing which providers, date ranges, or billing records are absent. This matters more on a patient-driven model, where the client may not remember every facility they visited.
- Demand letters are drafted from the chronology and the billing record rather than from a blank template. The mechanics of drafting an effective demand are where retrieval turnaround converts into settlement value.
- Client intake scoring assesses case value at the front of the funnel, and eDiscovery support handles review volume at the back.
Martay Law Office, an Illinois firm handling document-heavy workers' compensation matters, saw the effect downstream. Files running past 22,000 pages come back in minutes, and the firm took on 65% more work year over year without backfilling a departed clerk.
Which Platform Fits Your Firm
Choose Tavrn when your firm needs to own the timeline. If cases move on deadlines you control, if clients are hard to reach after intake, or if you want chronologies, missing-record detection, and demand drafting handled in the same system that pulled the records, firm-controlled retrieval is the model that fits. This describes most high-volume personal injury and medical malpractice practices.
Consider Chart Squad when cost is the binding constraint and your clients stay engaged. Its pathway reaches lower provider fees, patients keep durable control of their own records, and for pre-litigation matters or clients who want a lasting health record, that has real value beyond the case.
For most firms, the deciding factor is caseload behavior rather than price, specifically whether clients stay reachable long enough for a patient-driven request to finish.
Own the Timeline From Request to Demand
When your firm controls submission, follow-up runs without client participation, and the chronology lands inside a day, the case schedule sits with your team rather than in a client's inbox.
Paul LLP moved record requests from full eight-hour days to one to two hours per week, choosing Tavrn over traditional retrieval vendors because it needed scale without adding headcount. It is also worth weighing automated against manual retrieval before you decide.
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