What does the AE query loop actually cost your institution?

Put in your own trial count, your own visit schedule and your own salary bands. The model shows the coordinator and PI hours your current AE workflow carries, and what those hours cost you across a year.

Three steps. About ninety seconds. Transparent formulas. Free report.

This page models your labour. Every assumption is on the page and every one of them is yours to change, with the literature behind each default cited alongside it. If you want to know what Burna costs, ask us in the meeting and we will tell you.

per-query minutes drive the largest share of total cost

burna.ai/ae-labor-cost
STEP 1 · INSTITUTIONAL PROFILESTEP 2 · WORKFLOW CONTEXTSTEP 3 · CONTACT INFO

Institution type *

trials

Estimate if unsure. Typical ranges: community 5-30, AMC 40-150, NCI 250-600.

FTE

Optional. We estimate 0.25 FTE per trial if left blank.

FTE

Optional. We estimate 0.15 FTE per trial if left blank.

AEs / yr

Ballpark across the portfolio. If unknown, we estimate 40 AEs per trial per year.

queries / yr

Oracle ClearTrial benchmark: 3,000-10,000 queries per oncology trial over its lifetime. We annualize the midpoint at ~3,250 per active trial-year.

Current AE grading approach *

Coordinator minutes per query22 min
10 min45 min
PI minutes per query3 min
1 min15 min
Coordinator time on grading30%
5%40%
PI time on grading15%
2%20%
Loaded cost per coordinator$110K
$80K$150K
Loaded cost per PI$400K
$300K$700K

$11.38M

annual AE workflow labor cost

Monitor queries$8.01M
Coordinators on grading$0.70M
PIs on grading$0.77M
Supporting roles$1.90M

= 132,342 clinical hours per year

Numbers update as you type. Most institutions discover queries are the biggest line.

every slider is conservative, move them to see the impact

Figure 1. The model, run on example inputs: a mid-sized AMC, 85 active trials, code defaults elsewhere. Illustrative rendering.

For an academic medical center with 85 active trials:

Your estimated annual AE workflow labor cost

$11.38M

That is 132,342 clinical hours per year on AE grading, attribution, IND narratives, and the monitor query loop that follows. Most of it is the query loop.

monitor queries$8.01M
supporting roles$1.90M
PIs on grading$0.77M
coordinators on grading$0.70M
Illustrative renderingexample run: mid-sized AMC, 85 active trials, code defaults
Figure 2. Annual AE workflow labor by category, from the formulas below. Illustrative rendering.

What the math looks like at scale.

The monitor query loop drives most of this number, ahead of the initial grade. Oracle ClearTrial 2021 puts the per-query cost in the same range, and the benchmarks below show how it scales.

$0.8-2.4M

Community oncology, around 25 active trials.

$6-14M

Mid-sized AMC, around 80 active trials.

$40-60M

NCI comprehensive, around 400 active trials.

Sources: Oracle ClearTrial 2021; Pronker et al. 2011, BJCP; NCI public benchmark data.

RTM billing: patient self-reporting as reimbursable care.

Remote Therapeutic Monitoring (CPT 98976 / 98977 / 98980) is reimbursable by CMS when patients self-report symptoms. Healthnotes enables this with minimal coordinator overhead.

$0.32M

Assumes 680 active trial patients, 80 percent RTM eligibility, and full 12-month enrollment. CMS 2025 national averages.

CPT 98977Device setup & patient educationOne-time per eligible patient · $54.14$29K
CPT 98976Monthly monitoringRecurring every 30 days · $44.48 / mo$290K

These codes overlap with RPM and CCM billing rules. Talk to your compliance team before claiming. We can share a reference memo.

Run the model on your own study count. Then bring us the number.