Records, lab reports, and vaccination cards translated with clinical accuracy and confidential handling, in 326 languages.
Medical document translation turns records, discharge summaries, lab reports, and vaccination cards into English, or out of it, with a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy when the receiving body needs one. Prism Linguistics covers 326 languages, handles files under HIPAA-aware procedures, and short records are usually ready in 24 to 48 hours, from around $24.95 per page.
Last reviewed August 24, 2026 by the Prism Linguistics editorial team
Most orders start with a life event, not a project plan. You moved to the US mid-treatment and your new oncologist needs the chart from home. An insurer wants the hospital bill and discharge summary behind a claim. A school nurse in Chicago won't enroll your child without an English vaccination record. In each case the document has to be right, and it usually has to be certified.
Send a scan or a patient portal export through the quote form or call +1 (833) 282 8883; you will have a fixed price within 60 minutes during business hours.
Medical records translation is the bulk of what this page covers: full patient files, hospital discharge summaries, lab reports and blood panels, imaging reports, and treatment histories. Sometimes the direction is into English, so a US physician can continue care that started abroad. Sometimes it runs the other way, when a patient sends their chart to a specialist overseas for a second opinion, or a clinical trial needs a participant's history in the sponsor's language.
| Document | Commonly needed for | Typical turnaround |
|---|---|---|
| Full medical records and treatment histories | Continuing treatment with a new US physician, clinical-trial participation | Quoted on volume |
| Hospital discharge summaries | Continuing care, insurance and travel-insurance claims | 24 to 48 hours |
| Lab reports and blood panels | Second opinions, specialist referrals | 24 to 48 hours |
| Imaging reports (MRI, CT, X-ray) | Second opinions abroad, personal-injury cases | 24 to 48 hours |
| Vaccination and immunization records | School and daycare enrollment, USCIS filings, some employers | 24 to 48 hours |
| IME and specialist reports | Personal-injury litigation, life-insurance claims | 2 to 4 business days |
Vaccination records deserve a special mention because they are the most common single request. Nearly every US school district asks for an immunization history at enrollment, and a card from another country's health system rarely satisfies the office as-is. A short certified translation, usually one page, settles it.
A mistranslated contract costs money. A mistranslated medical record can cost a patient. Three traps come up constantly in this work. Drug names first: the same molecule sells under different brand names in different countries, so a translator has to resolve the brand in the source to the substance a US clinician will recognize. Units second: mg and mcg differ by a factor of a thousand, and some countries write decimals with commas, so "2,5 mg" has to arrive as 2.5 mg, not 25. Abbreviations third: clinical shorthand is national dialect, and an abbreviation that is routine in a Warsaw hospital may mean something else, or nothing, in Houston.
That is why every medical job here gets a second linguist who checks terminology, doses, and units against the source before delivery, and why the translated layout stays close to the original, so a physician can compare the two page by page.
When a medical document goes to an institution rather than a clinician, certification is usually the requirement. USCIS asks for a complete English translation with a signed certification for any foreign-language medical evidence in a filing, from vaccination histories to records supporting a waiver. Courts and attorneys need certified foreign medical records for independent medical examinations (IMEs) and personal-injury cases, where the treatment history from a road accident abroad becomes evidence. And insurers, including life-insurance claims teams, ask for certified translations before they will rely on foreign hospital records.
Each of these gets the same format: a complete, word-for-word translation with a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy, as described on our certified translation page. If the records are part of a larger USCIS package, our immigration document translation service covers the civil documents that travel with them, and foreign-trained healthcare professionals often pair their records with a diploma translation for licensing boards.
Medical records are about as sensitive as documents get, and we treat them that way regardless of who is asking. Files move over secure transfer rather than open email threads, access is limited to the linguists actually working on your job, and copies are not kept beyond what the project needs. For hospitals, health systems, insurers, and law firms whose work falls under HIPAA, we will sign a Business Associate Agreement on request. Individuals get the same handling without the paperwork.
The translators who take this work are native speakers of the target language, professionally qualified and background-checked, and assigned to medical jobs because of demonstrated experience with clinical material; many come to translation from healthcare or life-science backgrounds. That matters more here than in most fields. A generalist can produce a fluent sentence that is clinically wrong, and fluency is exactly what makes the error hard to spot.
Worth knowing if you are comparing providers: the American Translators Association (ATA) certifies translators in specific language pairs, and asking who will translate your records, and what qualifies them, is a fair question any good provider answers without hesitation.
Spanish leads by volume, followed by the languages of the communities US health systems serve every day. We translate medical documents in all 326 languages we cover, from major world languages to regional ones, and the certified format is the same in every pair. Browse the full languages list, or start with one of the most requested:
Four steps, and no originals required. A PDF export from your patient portal works as well as a scan.
Upload a clear scan, a phone photo, or a PDF exported from your patient portal through our quote form, or email it to info@prismlinguistics.com. Tell us the language, your deadline, and who will receive the translation.
We reply within 60 minutes during business hours with a fixed price and turnaround. Short records are priced per page; long files are quoted on volume. Nothing starts until you approve.
A translator with a medical background produces a complete translation, and a second linguist checks terminology, doses, and units against the source before anything leaves us.
You get a PDF by email, with a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy attached when the receiving body needs one. Short records are usually ready in 24 to 48 hours.
As a guide, medical document translation in the US market starts at around $24.95 per page for short standard records: a vaccination card, a one-page lab report, a short discharge summary. Longer files such as full medical records, treatment histories, and IME bundles are quoted on volume rather than per page, because a 200-page chart and a 20-page chart are simply different jobs. Rush delivery for short documents is sometimes possible, subject to capacity, and carries a surcharge we confirm before you commit.
Treat those figures as market guidance rather than a price list; our pricing page publishes the full ranges, and your quote confirms the exact price before any work begins. The quote itself is free and arrives within 60 minutes during business hours.
This page is about paperwork for individuals and case files. If your organization needs ongoing clinical, pharmaceutical, or device translation, that discipline lives on our medical translation services page. And if what you actually need is a person, someone to interpret at an appointment, an ER intake, or a telehealth visit, our healthcare sector team arranges medical interpreters on-site and remotely, 24/7.
The questions patients, attorneys, and claims teams ask most often.
Upload a scan or portal export and tell us who needs the translation. A fixed price and turnaround come back within 60 minutes during business hours.
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