Referral Intake: Keep it simple

Q. What are the keys to building and maintaining referral relationships?

A. Revenue and patient efficacy are heavily impacted by referral relationships. Physicians making referrals can and will change where they are sending patients because of a burdensome referral process or patient experience. Referring providers will default to whoever makes their lives easiest and can get their patients the care they need as quickly as possible. And a negative or positive experience can affect your reputation across the broader market.

 Things referring sources hate: excessive back and forth related to missing information, having to change the way they work or document in order to facilitate smooth intake, and delays that negatively impact their patients' quality of life.

What referring sources look for when choosing where to send their patients: efficient intake that reduces their administrative burden, streamlined information gathering that requires as little effort on their end as possible, and quick access to equipment for their patients. Clear and timely communication between the referrer, HME provider and the patient across the entire patient lifecycle.

Why does it start with intake?

Referral stressors are not new, but as HMEs get more adept at solving them, the landscape will only become more competitive. Differentiating yourself starts at intake.

For HME providers, there’s also the lifetime revenue impact of resupplying patients. Imagine you have a patient referral that sits in intake for months–the referring provider gets fed up and doesn’t send you any referrals in the future–plus if it’s a resupply patient it could represent years of recurring revenue. You lose both one time and resupply order revenue from the loss of the relationship.

To strengthen and improve your relationship with referring physicians, prioritize optimizing your intake process. Focus on intake optimizations that make the lives of your referring providers operationally easier and more efficient, making you the simplest choice for their patient referrals.

Bruna Dos Santos is director of clinical intelligence at Tennr.