Referral Request Process

Sometimes after seeing a patient, a provider may recommend a patient be seen by a specialist or schedule specific imaging. In this case, the provider will start a task, usually on the Monday Daily Management or Task Management board, but occasionally via tagging the patient advocate team on Microsoft Teams.

If from the Daily Management board, a provider will generally add the required information to the update section of the task, then send it to “Next Advocate.” If from the Task Management Board, the provider will add the required information, then assign the task to the “Patient Advocate Team” and label the task “advocate.” The Patient Advocate team will then assign the incoming referral internally to a team member. Providers should stay on the task as an “other.”

Providers should provide the following by using the TextExpander snippet “new.referral”:

PTID and name
Service Requested
Diagnosis and ICD-10
Insurance, self-pay, or research both
Notes to be sent along with referral
Urgency of Referral

If a provider indicates need for a referral via Microsoft Teams and not on our Monday Daily Management Board, first create a new task for the referral, assign yourself (or responsible Patient Advocate to the task), and make sure to label it as a Patient Advocate Task once moved to the Task Management Board.

The Referral Steps are as follows:

Create referral document: General Order Form for Labs_ Imaging_ _ Therapy.2021.07.19
Source appropriate office notes and face sheet
Investigate insurance coverage for referral (ie MRI). Compare insurance vs. cash price
Research facilities/specialists and gather approx appointment times
Communicate findings with patient and proceed after patient weighs in – Never hesitate to call the patient if they’re not responsive via in-app messaging.
Fax referral sheet along with patient face sheet, and appropriate office notes, confirm receipt
Confirm appointment time
Add the faxed referral to patient documents section of their chart
Communicate with ordering provider
Set follow-up task to check in on results after appointment date