Referral Management

PracticeSuite has brought in the Referral Management module to track and manage the referral process efficiently. Our enhanced referral screen can generate referral reports, compose and send referrals as faxes, generate referral letters, add diagnosis codes for the referral, add insurance information, and attach patient documents to be used along with the referral. Referrals can also be accessed from within charts. 

How To Access Referral Screen

Click on Referrals on the main menu or go to clinical desktop.

The Referral section in the clinical desktop will provide a count of all the pending referrals in the system, along with the individual counts of referral ins and referral outs. The pop-up icon (highlighted in Image 1) will take the user to the referral management screen.

Image 1

 

Referral Listing Screen

Referrals in and out are listed in separate tabs. Each tab will have an ‘+Add Referral’ button at the top-right corner to add the respective referrals.

Search Filters

Referral On, Patient, Status, Assigned To.

Sample Referral Screen

Columns in the Referral Listing

* A tick mark will appear on the listing page for the faxed referrals (see the highlighted portion in the image above). Also, the user who sent the fax along with the date and time stamp will be logged in the ‘Remarks’ tab.

* The referral number and referral date will open the referral details screen when clicked. The Patient MR# field will open Patient Demographics, from where the demographic details can be edited.

* Referrals can have the following statuses: NEW, PENDING, COMPLETE, REJECT, HOLD,  and VOID. Statuses will be color-coded as above and displayed in the referral listing. By default, only referrals in the NEW status will be displayed. To view referrals in other statuses, select ALL or the required one from the Status drop-down.

* The referral listing page can filter the records according to the ‘Assigned To’ user. 

* The referral listing will have an ellipsis on the right end with two options: ‘Generate Referral Report’ as a PDF and ‘Compose eFax’.

* The generated PDF will have the following information:

Patient details, including name, address, DOB, gender, phone, and the practice address. This section also includes service location, service date, rendering provider, and referring provider.
Insurance information such as the insurance company name and member ID of the patient and the ICD code and descriptions
Referral Letter for the referring provider.
Attachments which include the necessary patient documents attached from the referral out page.

Sample Referral PDF

* The ‘Compose eFax’ option will open the eFax screen and will have the following values set by default:

The patient name and the fax number of the ‘referring to’ provider (if a fax number is associated with the provider). The attachment section will have the referral and any patient documents attached to the referral.

Referral Details Screen

Document attachment facility:  The Referral screen will have the option to attach multiple patient documents to be used along with the referral. While faxing the referral, all documents appended here will be automatically attached to the eFax message.  

To attach, click on the icon to open the Doc. Manager. Select a document and click on ‘Add’. Keep on Adding and Choose ‘Done’ when all the documents have been attached.

Add diagnoses to Referrals: Users can search and include additional diagnosis codes while saving the referral. If a chart is associated with the referral, the diagnoses entered through the chart are defaulted in the referral screen and can be removed, and additional codes can be added through this screen. The additions and deletions won’t be reflected in the chart.

Referral Notes: This is a text editor where the user can type in free form or load referral letters saved in the system via the new ‘Template’ drop-down. Referral letters must be saved with the group code REFERRAL in the Letter Master for them to appear on the Referral screen. Users can modify the letter within the editor tool and save it. The letter will also appear in the referral report.

Click here to view the tags that can be used in Referral letters.

Insurance Addition for Referrals: The insurance required for the referral can be added from the referral screen. The insurance pop-up will display all patient insurance options for the user to choose from.

Remark History: A new tab ‘Remarks’ has been created in the Referral screen. Here, users can enter any comments on the referral, which will be saved with the username along with the date & time stamp. The remarks can be used as an activity log for the referral. To include all the remarks in the PDF report, check the box ‘Include Remarks in Referral Report’ (highlighted in the image above).

Facility to assign a referral to a user: The referral screen has a task assignment feature. The ‘Assigned To’ drop-down can be used to assign the referral to a provider. 

Access Patient Demographics: The Demographics screen can be accessed via the button beside the patient field, through which new patients can be added. 

Referral in Charts

1. Adding Referrals through Charts: Referrals can also be added from within a patient’s chart. To use from within charts, create level-1 components for Referral In and Referral out. Level-1 codes should be used as follows:

Referral in: REFERRAL_IN
Referral Out: REFERRAL_OUT

Click on the Referral In and Out Level-1 components to open the respective Referral In and Out screens from where the user can enter the referral details. The referral gets created and can be viewed from the referral screen. Any updates made from within the chart will reflect on the referral screen, and vice versa.

2. Clinical Note To Contain Referral Information: The clinical note will display information on all the referrals added to the chart in the following format.

Referral In: The patient is referred from <<Referral provider from>> on <<Referral_date>>, for <<Referral reason>>.

Referral Out: The patient is referred to <<Referral provider to>> on <<Referral_date>>, for <<Referral reason>>.

3. Referral Information in Charting Action: Referrals added for the patient from the chart will be displayed on the charting action screen in the format below. Options to view and print are available next to the referral info. Refer to the image below.

Referral In/Out Provider Name

Referral Reason