Usually needs a certificate of accuracy
Bank statement
Long, repetitive and priced by the page like everything else — which surprises people.
Usually about six pages — an estimate, not a count
Business, financial and medical files
Medical record
Handwriting, abbreviations and drug names, and rarely wanted by anybody official.
The ordinary part
Who asks for a medical record, and what we need from you
Two questions, answered the same way every time, and they are the two that decide whether the job can start today or has to wait for a second photograph.
Who asks for it
A second opinion, continuing treatment after moving, an insurance claim, an immigration medical.
A description of what offices have usually wanted, which is a different thing from a rule. Nobody here is in a position to say what your own matter requires, and the page explaining why is on this site.
What to send
Everything in order, and tell us which part is actually needed — a whole hospital file translated in full is expensive and usually more than anybody asked for.
The part people find out late
What goes wrong with a medical record
Everything above this is the ordinary business of a translation office and could be written about almost any document in the catalogue. This paragraph could not, and it is the reason this is a page rather than a row in a list.
Drug names are national. The same molecule is sold under a different brand in every country and under a name that belongs to a different molecule in some of them, so we give the international non-proprietary name alongside whatever the record says, and we do not quietly substitute the American brand.
That is the whole of it. If it describes what you are holding, it is worth knowing before the work is paid for rather than afterwards; if it does not, nothing else on this page changes. Either way it is not a thing anybody can settle from a description, which is why a quote follows a reading and an estimate does not.
Length and certification
How long it usually is, and what usually goes with it
Both of these are descriptions rather than rules, and the first of them is a guess: most run to about eight pages, but that is a figure to plan around and not a figure to pay from.
Length
A page on this rate card is 250 words rather than a sheet of paper, so a dense sheet can be two pages and a sparse one can be half of one. That is why the figure above is written as a guess and why nothing is priced from it.
- The estimator counts from the number you give it, never from the figure above
- A quote follows somebody reading the document, and it is the one to rely on
- Stamps, seals, marginal notes and anything handwritten are part of the length
Certification
Not usually certified — it depends who is reading it.
- Everything we do — which service this kind of file usually goes to
- Certified translation — if the office asking for it wants one after all
- The whole rate card — priced by the word rather than the page
About the cheaper option. We use machine translation on some work, we say so, and we charge about half for it. What it cannot do is sign a certificate of accuracy, because that is a person taking responsibility. Which work falls on which side of that line is on its own page.
An estimate and a quote are different objects. An estimate is arithmetic on what you typed. It is not an offer, it does not bind anybody, and it will move if the document turns out to be longer, in worse condition or a different thing from what it was described as. The quote that follows somebody reading it is the one to rely on.
Other business, financial and medical files
Same group, same reader at the other end, and each one has a paragraph like the one above.
Usually needs a certificate of accuracy
Employment or income letter
One page on a letterhead, usually written last week and needed tomorrow.
Usually about one page — an estimate, not a count
Usually needs a certificate of accuracy
Company registration and corporate records
An extract from a commercial register, plus whatever the bank has asked for this week.
Usually about five pages — an estimate, not a count
Send us the document
A photograph of every page of a medical record is enough to quote from, and it is quicker than describing what you are holding.