Interinstitutional comparison of surgical biopsy diagnosis turnaround time: a College of American Pathologists Q-Probes study of 5384 surgical biopsies in 157 small hospitals.

Pathologists are capable of signing off most routine biopsy diagnoses within 2 working days and delivering the final hard-copy reports to surgeons within 4 working days (both intervals measured from the time that surgeons collect biopsy specimens). Most surgeons report they are satisfied with this level of performance.