Linking incoming referrals to patients (front-end staff)

When front-end staff receive an incoming faxed or mailed (scanned) referral, the fist step is to link the document to a patient record (similar to how you link other documents to patients) and assign Incoming Referral as the Document Type. If the patient is not yet added to your system, you can add the patient as you are linking the document.

After you define a referral document as an Incoming Referral, the referral displays in the provider's Incoming Referrals list.

Note: If you do not define the document as an Incoming Referral, the referral letter displays in the provider’s New Documents list.

Steps

On the Wolf EMR Home page, click Documents

In the Documents window, link the referral letter to a patient as you do other documents and in the Document Type list, choose Incoming Referral. See Linking documents to patient charts.

If the patient is not yet in your system, you can add them:

In the Patient Search area, click Advanced, and then click New Patient

or, on your keyboard, press F9.

In the Patient Maintenance window, enter the patient’s information. See Adding a new patient.

Tip:

Adding referred patients:

In the Patient Maintenance window, ensure you record the patient’s referring provider, and the referral expiry date.

If the referring provider you want is not on the consultants list, you can add them to the consultants list from the Appointment Scheduler (Configure > New Referral Consultant (Quick Add) and enter the referring provider’s information).

In the Documents window, search for and select the added patient.

When you finish entering information in the Documents window, click Link Only. The EMR adds the referral to the Incoming Referrals list, and the provider can now review and respond to the referral.