Artera's Referral Management solution allows you to quickly follow up on referrals received by your organization with automated patient outreach.  

Benefits of Referral Management

• Simplify Patient Experience: Introducing Conversational Messaging in the Referral process makes it easier for patients to schedule Referrals, leading to more Referrals scheduled overall. Click here to learn more about Conversational Messaging.

• Create Staff Efficiency: Staff can manage multiple Referral scheduling requests at the same time through Artera Patient Channels, making it more efficient than phone outreach. 

• Only Schedule Authorized Referrals: You can configure the platform to only message patients with authorized Referrals, building greater control into the scheduling process.

Referral Management Flow

Referral Management Setup

1. We recognize that our clients have different needs when it comes to managing their Referrals. We have built Artera Referrals to allow for these setups with the following customization options: 

1. Centralized or Decentralized Referral Management

2. Referral Routing based on Specialty or Location

3. Referral Automations triggered by Referral Creation or Scheduling Status Change

4. Referral Automation messages using standard Automations or Conversation Builder Conversations
   
   

These setup options will determine how you create your Automations and manage Referrals. Note: Your Project Manager will work with you to determine the setup that aligns best with your current Referral workflow. However, some options may be dictated by the data that can be populated through your integration to Artera. 

Centralized or Decentralized

Artera allows you to choose a Centralized or Decentralized Referral build in Artera.

• Centralized: All Referrals populate into a single Practice and all Referral Automations will be sent from the same Phone Line. This does not have to be an exclusive Referral Practice, but it can be. 

• Decentralized: Referrals will be populated into the specific Location or Specialty in their respective Practices. Additionally, Referral Automations will be sent from the Location or Speciality-specific Phone Line. 

Specialty or Location-based Routing

Artera can route the Referral by Referred to Location or Referred to Speciality. 

• Locations: Location routing will map the Location ID of the Referral to the Location ID in Artera. 

• Specialty: Specialty Routing requires the specialties to be created in Artera and assigned to individual Practices. This requires mapping the Specialty ID in your EMR to the Speciality Resource in Artera and allows you to choose which specialties you would like to support for referrals.
  
  

Click here to learn more about Referral Routing options, including configuring Specialties. 

Referral Creation or Scheduling Status Change Automation Trigger

Today, you can send Referral Automations using the Referral Created trigger or the Status Change Trigger. You cannot use both within the same Enterprise, so you will need to choose which option works best for your workflow and integration capability.  

• Referral Created: This option will send a Referral Automation after a designated amount of time from when the Referral was created, e.g. message the patient 15 minutes after the Referral is created. This allows you to create a cadence of Automations that will send based on the original creation time. 

• Scheduling Status Change: This option will send a Referral Automation when the Referral’s scheduling status changes from one status to another, e.g. message the patient 15 minutes after the Referral status is updated. This allows you to create a cadence of Automations that will send based on updates to the Referral’s scheduling status. Important: Scheduling Statuses are not part of the standard REF HL7 message set, so customization to the feed is required to use this trigger. 

Click here to learn more about enabling the chosen Automation trigger.

Standard Automations or Conversations Built in Conversation Builder

Referral Automations can be delivered using the standard Artera Automation message option or with Conversation Builder. 

• Standard Automations: This functionality is included with your Referrals purchase. Write-backs for Referrals are not supported today with this process.

• Conversation Builder: This functionality allows you to work through multiple scheduling steps automatically through the conversation engine and does support write-backs for Referral statuses. However, this does require purchasing Conversation Builder in addition to the standard Referrals package.

Check out the following instructions on building your Default Automations, configuring Practice Automations, and related examples of referral messages and cadence. Click here for instructions on building your Referrals Conversation in the Conversation Builder engine. 

Referral Focus

Referral Management allows you to build workflows for managing Internal Referrals and Inbound External Referrals. 

• Internal Referrals: These are Referrals within your health system (e.g. Referrals that stay within the same EMR). For example, the patient may receive a Referral from their WH Primary Care provider to a WH Speciality provider. 

• Inbound External Referrals: These are Referrals from a different health system to your health system. For example, the patient may receive a Referral from XZ Primary Care to a WH Speciality provider. This Referral type can be supported as long as these Referrals are ingested into your EMR’s work queue or can be provided to Artera through a flat file upload. 

Outbound External Referrals—Referrals from your health system’s EMR to another organization are not supported.