Prospect management & outreach

Every lead in one prospect pipeline.

A prospect is a potential patient moving through your outreach and intake funnel, before they become an active patient. Fertiligent brings every prospect, however they first reached you, into one place, with their full history, so your team can work the funnel without losing anyone.

Where prospects come from

Prospects are captured automatically from every intake channel and land in a single list:

• a conversation with Eva on your website;
• a follow-up from a phone call;
• a confirmed referral;
• an import from another system (for example a CRM).

Each prospect records where they came from, so you can see which channels are producing inquiries.

The prospect record

Open a prospect to see everything about them in one view:

• Contact details: name, email, phone, preferred language, age.
• Intake information: structured details captured during the first interaction.
• Interaction timeline: a chronological history of every touch across every channel, including messages, calls, and texts. System-sent texts are logged here automatically, so staff never have to hand-record them.
• Notes: a log of signed, dated notes from your team (see Notes below).
• Linked partner: when the prospect's partner was referred too, a link to their record (see Partners booked together).
• Patient details form: what the patient has told you on the details form, with their latest changes highlighted (see The patient details form).
• Conversations: every call, text, portal message and email with this person, in one panel. See Conversations.

Beside the status at the top of the record, Assigned to and a name show who on your team is working the referral, the same person as the list's Assigned to column. Nothing shows when nobody is assigned.

When your team sends a prospect a secure message, the record shows when the prospect read it, so staff can tell an unanswered message from an unopened one. A portal email sent to the prospect shows on the Activity tab as the text the patient read.

Notes

Notes on a prospect are a running log in which every entry is signed and dated, so a record worked by several people shows who wrote what, and when.

• Type in the box at the top of the Notes card and press Add note. The note is saved straight away (it does not wait for the page's Save) and shows your name and the date and time you wrote it. The newest note is at the top.
• You can Edit or Delete only the notes you wrote yourself, and delete asks you to confirm. An edited note says so, with the time it was changed. Other people's notes have no Edit or Delete.
• Text from the old single General Notes box is kept, read-only, under Earlier notes. It was written before notes were signed and dated (or captured automatically when the lead came in), so it has no author or time.

When two records are merged, the notes move to the record you keep.

On the prospect list, the Comment column shows the newest note (or, for a record with no notes, the old General Notes text or the latest message), and the Comment filter searches every note on the record, not only the newest.

The prospect list

The list is split into three tabs by where a prospect sits in the funnel, Intake, In-Progress and Completed. Intake and In-Progress show the longest-waiting record first, so the queue is worked top-down; Completed shows the most recently finished first. Each tab remembers the sort you last used on it.

Every column has its own filter under its heading, and the column headings and the Name column both stay put while you scroll a long list, so you are never reading unlabelled columns. The date and age range filters (Age, Referral date, Date contacted, Last interaction) stay open while you type, and the list updates once the date is complete.

To sort by a column, click anywhere on its heading, not only on the label. The arrow shows which column the list is sorted by and in which direction; the fainter arrow on the other headings shows they can be sorted too.

A Details updated badge next to a name means the patient has changed their details on the patient details form and nobody has reviewed the change yet.

To find one person, type their date of birth straight into the DOB box under the heading. The list shows everyone on the current tab born that day. A date that is unfinished or impossible (such as 31/02), or in the future, is outlined in red with a note saying so, rather than leaving the list unfiltered without a word. The search covers the tab you are on; if the same date of birth matches someone on another tab, a line under the list names it, for example Same date of birth on another tab: 1 on In-Progress, and clicking it opens that tab. With any filter on, an empty list reads No prospects match these filters.

Two things make the list a working surface rather than a directory:

• Assigned to: the staff member working the record. This is a person on your team, and it sits next to the separate Assigned physician column: a record with nobody on it reads Unclaimed. It is what turns "the list" into "my list".
• Awaiting reply: a single toggle for people we contacted who have not answered since. It's the follow-up list that previously had to be reconstructed by hand.

Recently viewed

Above the list, Recently viewed shows the last 8 prospects you opened, newest first, each with their date of birth so two people with the same name can be told apart. Click one to go straight back to the record; Clear empties the row. The Patients list has the same row (see Patients).

The row is yours alone and stays on the computer you are using: it doesn't follow you to another workstation, and a colleague signing in on the same computer sees their own. A record you can no longer open, for example one merged into another, drops off it.

Suggest best order

On the In-Progress tab, Suggest best order shows your clinic's ranking of the in-progress prospects by who needs attention first. The list keeps its normal order until you press it. Pressing it adds a Suggestion column beside Name, with each row's rank, a recommendation and a one-line reason, so you can check the suggestion against the record before you act on it.

There is one ranking for the whole clinic, saved for everyone:

• It opens straight away, and every person on the team sees the same order. The banner above the list says when it was ranked and who asked for it, for example Ranked 20 minutes ago by Tina.
• It stays put. Open a patient and come back, or come back tomorrow, and the list is still in the suggested order until you press Back to normal order.
• Refresh ranks again in the background. You can keep working, open a patient or leave the page; the banner shows the refresh running and how many prospects it is reading, and the list switches to the new ranking by itself when it is done. Only prospects that changed since they were last read (a new text, email, call or note, or a change of status, hold or priority) are read again, so a refresh usually takes seconds and the rest of the order doesn't move. Every few days each prospect is read again anyway. If two people press Refresh at once, there is still only one refresh.
• Early each morning (from 6:00 am Eastern, or when the portal is first opened that day) the ranking is refreshed in the background. If someone opens the list while it is still running, they see the previous ranking with the banner showing the refresh, and the list switches when it is done. This happens for clinics that have pressed Suggest best order at least once. A ranking made this way shows when it was ranked, with no name.
• Changed since ranking. A prospect whose details changed after the ranking was made is placed by their current status and contact history straight away and marked Changed since ranking (or New since ranking for a prospect who wasn't in it). A patient who just replied moves to Respond now, and one someone just called drops to Wait, without waiting for a refresh. The next refresh reads them again.
• The first time your clinic uses it, the first ranking is made in the background, which takes about a minute; the normal list stays usable until it is ready. If that first ranking doesn't finish, a message says so and the list keeps its normal order. The page doesn't start it again: press Refresh to try now, or it is tried again in the next morning's refresh.
• Reasons written from what patients said are in your clinic's language, whoever pressed Refresh; reasons from status and contact history alone show in your own language.

Group	Who is in it
Respond now	The patient is waiting on the clinic: they replied and nobody has answered yet, asked for a call back or an appointment, or were just reached by phone and are ready to book. A patient who replied after the clinic's last message is always placed here, unless their outreach is on hold, they said no, or they asked for time.
Follow up	Still worth pursuing, and due for the next attempt.
Wait	Contacted in the last few days, outreach is on hold at the patient's request, or the patient asked to be contacted later ("after the holidays", "busy this week").
Likely close-out	Several attempts by call, text or email over weeks or months with no reply, or the patient said they will not go ahead: they chose another clinic, are pregnant, moved away, replied STOP or asked to be removed.

A few things hold whatever the ranking says:

• It never changes a record. The suggestion is advice. Closing a referral is still your decision, through Returned or Withdrawn as usual.
• Patient said no. A Likely close-out row where the patient declined carries a Patient said no label and comes first in its group. A "maybe later" or a wrong number is not treated as a no.
• Never a close-out under 60 days. A referral younger than 60 days is not suggested for closing unless the patient said no, because many patients book late.
• Nobody to chase, nothing to rank. A prospect whose nurse intake is already booked (Intake booked) is left out.

Above the list, a row of buttons shows how many prospects fell into each group. Press one, for example Likely close-out, to show only that group; press it again, or All, to see every ranked row.

The ranking reads each record's status, its contact attempts and their outcomes, how old the referral is, and the recent texts, emails, call notes and call summaries. A star beside a recommendation means it was made after reading what the patient wrote or what your team noted; a list icon means it came from the status and contact history alone (for a record with nothing more to read, or where AI suggestions are not set up for your clinic, which the banner above the list then says). The 1,000 newest in-progress prospects are in the ranking; the banner says so if some were left out.

Changing a filter keeps the suggested order and shows only the matching rows in it. Back to normal order or clicking a column heading returns the list to its usual order, and the other tabs always use their usual order. If a refresh doesn't finish, the banner says so and the earlier ranking stays on screen; press Refresh again later.

For how an intake team builds this into its day, see Your daily intake routine.

Suggestion impact

The Suggestion impact link next to Suggest best order opens a page that measures the suggestions against what happened next:

• For each group: how often a person on your team contacted the patient within a day, and how many patients replied, booked or were closed within 30 days.
• What the AI added: the rows it changed from the simple rules, and how many patients flagged as Likely close-out booked anyway. That number should stay close to zero.
• Responsiveness by week: across the whole clinic, whether or not anyone pressed the button, how many patient messages came in, how fast staff answered them, and how many referrals booked.
• Replies and the inbox, for staff who can open the Reply inbox: per week, the share of patient messages answered the same business day against the clinic's 90% goal (weeks below it are highlighted), the median hours to a reply, messages nobody answered, conversations marked Done (and how many of those had no reply first), and which screen replies were sent from. See The same-day reply goal.

Every finished refresh, including the morning one, is kept for this page; opening the list is not. What is kept is which group each prospect was placed in, not the conversation.

Editing from the list

Six columns are editable in place, without opening the record: Reason for referral, Assigned to, Priority, Assigned physician, Status and Referral date.

Priority can be left on Auto, where the system derives it from the reason for referral, or set explicitly. The Status dropdown offers only the moves that are legal from where the row is now, and is read-only where none are: a booked prospect (Booked or Intake booked) is un-booked by cancelling the booking, not by editing the status, and the closed-out statuses are final.

Referral date has a pencil beside the date. It opens a date box with a tick to save and a cross to cancel; Enter saves and Escape cancels. See Correcting the referral date.

Editing in place deliberately does not reload the list under you, so working down a long queue never loses your place.

Correcting the referral date

Each prospect has one referral date. It starts as the date on the referral letter. When that date is misleading, for example a letter dated two years ago that only arrived this week, change it to the date the referral was received. There is no separate "received" date to keep in step.

• Change it from the list (the pencil in the Referral date cell) or on the record's Source & Referral card, then Save.
• The date can't be in the future or before 1 January 2000, and an unfinished year won't save.
• Every change is written on the timeline, for example Referral date changed from 2023-04-12 to 2026-09-15. It is not counted as a contact attempt.
• Everything else uses the new date: sorting and filtering by Referral date, the Overdue flag, and the referral reports and export when they count by referral date. Reports that count by the date a referral was received use the upload time and are not affected.
• When a new referral reopens a closed prospect, the referral date becomes the new letter's date (or the day it arrived, if the letter has none). A new letter for a prospect who is still being worked doesn't change it.

Working the funnel

A prospect moves through a set of outreach stages (Not started, 1st contact, 2nd contact, Pending, Intake booked, Booked, Returned, Withdrawn and Repeat) and your team drives it forward. Intake booked means the nurse intake is booked and the referral is waiting for the physician consultation, so it stays on the In-Progress tab; Booked means the consultation is booked and the referral is complete (see Nurse intake first, then the consultation).

• Log a contact attempt. Record the outcome of a call (no answer, left a message, or reached) as a timeline entry.
• Update details and notes. Keep contact information and context current.
• Assign a physician. Route the prospect to the right provider.
• Book an appointment. From the prospect's detail screen, book them into an open appointment slot (see below). Booking is what moves a prospect toward becoming an active patient.
• Link a portal account. Connect the prospect to a registered patient-portal user once they onboard.

Marking a returning patient as Repeat

Some people who come through intake are already, or used to be, patients of the clinic. Mark them Repeat instead of working them as a new prospect: choose it from the list's Status dropdown, or from Change status on the record, where you can add a note. It is offered from Not started, 1st contact, 2nd contact and Pending, not from Intake booked or Booked.

Repeat is a finished stage. The prospect moves to the Completed tab with Booked, Returned and Withdrawn, and the automated intake messages stop. It describes who the person is, not a request to stop contact: the prospect can still be invited to the portal and sent secure messages. To work them as a new prospect after all, press Reopen (see When a returned patient comes back); a new confirmed referral for them reopens the record the same way.

Putting a prospect back into Intake

A prospect moved out of Intake by mistake can be moved back. Any of the in-progress stages (1st contact, 2nd contact and Pending) can return to Not started. Until now that was a one-way door: nothing anywhere in the product led back, so a record advanced by accident stayed advanced.

It does not erase the contact history. Everything already on the record (the calls, the texts, the logged attempts, the earlier stage changes) stays exactly where it was. Only the funnel stage moves.

Where you make the change matters:

• Changed from the list's Status dropdown, it's recorded as a correction. It is not counted as a contact attempt, and the prospect's date contacted does not move, so a correction never invents a phone call nobody made.
• Changed from the record's own Status field, it's recorded as an ordinary stage change, which the list reads as evidence somebody worked the record.

Use the list dropdown when nobody was actually contacted.

Intake booked, Booked, Returned, Withdrawn and Repeat don't move back through the dropdown. A booked prospect is un-booked by cancelling the booking (otherwise the record would claim nobody is booked while the appointment stayed live on the calendar); a withdrawal is the patient's own statement, handled below, and a returned or withdrawn prospect, or one marked Repeat, who comes back is reopened, which starts a new cycle (see When a returned patient comes back).

When a returned patient comes back

A prospect you returned to the referring physician, or who withdrew, sometimes reaches out again weeks later. Open their record and press Reopen on the status row. The record goes back to Not started in the Intake list as a new cycle: the return reason is cleared, booking is allowed again, and the earlier cycle stays in the timeline, so the history of what happened the first time is not lost. Reopen is offered only on a Returned, Withdrawn or Repeat record; a live record keeps the normal status controls.

A new referral arriving for a returned, withdrawn or Repeat prospect reopens the record the same way on its own, you only need the button when the patient comes back without one.

Prospects who withdraw

Withdrawn is where a prospect ends up when they tell you they no longer wish to proceed. Reaching it closes outreach, so nobody keeps contacting them, and it clears any contact preference they had stated: a withdrawn prospect never carries a "prefers text" that invites someone to text them anyway.

A withdrawal is only recorded when the patient's intent is unambiguous. If they say something that reads as withdrawal but isn't a clear answer to a question you asked, outreach is put on hold and a coordinator is asked to confirm rather than the file closing itself. See Patient messaging & SMS. Staff can reverse a withdrawal if it turns out to be wrong.

Spotting prospects who've waited too long

A prospect nobody has started working yet is flagged Overdue on the list, a tinted row and an Overdue badge against the referral date, once their referral has been sitting longer than your clinic's turnaround target. The default target is 3 days; ask your Fertiligent contact to change it.

Only prospects still at Not started are flagged, so the highlight tracks work nobody has picked up rather than work in progress.

Booking a prospect into a slot

Scheduling for prospects is built into the portal, no external system required:

1. Staff publish bookable appointment slots for a physician on the calendar.
2. From a prospect's detail screen, pick an open slot and book them in. A referral can be booked into a Nurse Intake Call or a Consultation; the other appointment types are for patients already in treatment and are not offered here. The prospect needs a date of birth on file before you can book. Nurse intake times are listed over your clinic's booking window (see Intake nurse availability), consultation times over the next 14 days.
3. Booking is conflict-checked, if two people try to take the same slot, exactly one succeeds and the other is told the slot is no longer open.

Cancel booking asks you to confirm first, because it releases the time to everyone else and can't be undone. The slot goes back to open and the prospect goes back to Pending, ready to be re-engaged. See Scheduling & booking for the full scheduling model.

Nurse intake first, then the consultation

Where your clinic sees a nurse before the physician, booking the Nurse Intake Call does not finish the referral. Whoever books it (your team, or the patient by text, by phone or in the website chat), the prospect moves to Intake booked and stays on the In-Progress tab, and the record shows a blue Nurse intake booked banner: the referral is waiting for the physician appointment. The booking actions stay on the card, now offering only the Consultation.

Booking the Consultation, or recording one booked in your EMR, moves the prospect to Booked and onto the Completed tab. The nurse intake stays on the calendar. Cancel booking on an Intake booked prospect cancels the nurse intake.

A heads-up before booking past the nurse intake. When the referral is assigned to someone else and the nurse intake isn't booked yet, booking any other appointment first asks: "Assigned to (name). The nurse intake isn't booked yet, and this appointment completes the referral. Continue anyway?" This covers both Book appointment and Record appointment booked elsewhere. Continue books as usual; Cancel books nothing and keeps the time you picked or the details you typed. It is a warning, never a block. It doesn't appear when the referral is assigned to you or to nobody, when the appointment is the nurse intake itself, when a nurse intake is already on the calendar for the prospect, or at a clinic that doesn't book nurse intakes.

When the appointment was booked in your EMR

Where your clinic books the real appointment in its own EMR, that appointment can be recorded on the prospect so the funnel and the calendar reflect what is actually happening. It's on the prospect's own screen, beside Book appointment: pick the appointment type, the physician, and a date and time. A recorded Consultation moves the prospect to Booked; a recorded Nurse Intake Call moves it to Intake booked, still in progress.

Three things to be clear about:

• It holds no clinic time. A recorded appointment reserves nothing, so it can never collide with a real booking or quietly swallow an intake window a patient could have self-booked.
• Nothing syncs. This records what you tell it; the two systems are not linked. If the appointment is moved or cancelled in your EMR, somebody has to reflect that here.
• It's labelled. On the calendar the appointment says where it really lives, so nobody mistakes it for a slot the clinic is holding.

Unlike a normal booking, it doesn't require the physician to have availability set up in Fertiligent, a physician whose schedule lives entirely in your EMR is exactly the case it exists for. It does still require the prospect's date of birth, as booking does.

Partners booked together

When a reviewer confirms a couple match on two referrals (the Possible couple match banner on the referral), the two prospects become linked partners. They are linked, not merged: each keeps its own status, timeline and booking. Breaking the couple match on the referral unlinks them again. Couples confirmed before linking existed are not linked retroactively.

• Where you see it. The Scheduling card shows Linked partner with the partner's name (click it to open their record), their status, and Booked together once both hold the same appointment. Both timelines record the link and the unlink.
• Booked together by default. While a partner is linked, the Scheduling card shows Also book (partner) into the same appointment, already ticked. Booking the patient, or recording an appointment booked elsewhere, then adds the partner to the same appointment and gives them the same stage (Intake booked for a nurse intake, Booked for a consultation). Untick it to book only this person.
• A partner is never overwritten. A partner who is Returned, Withdrawn or Repeat, who already has their own appointment, or who has no date of birth on file is left as they are. Both timelines say why, and the page warns you the partner was not added.
• By phone and in the website chat too. When the assistant books a nurse intake for someone with a linked partner, the partner is added to the same appointment under the same rules. The assistant doesn't mention the partner to the patient; the timelines record it, and your team can take the partner off afterwards.
• Each person gets their own confirmation, which says the appointment is with your partner.
• On the calendar a shared appointment shows both names, for example Jane Doe + John Doe.
• Cancelling. On the patient who owns the appointment, Cancel booking releases it and takes the partner off too; both go back to Pending. On the partner, the button reads Remove from appointment and takes only the partner off.
• Unlink partner, next to the linked partner, undoes a wrong couple at any time. It also marks the referrals as not a couple, so they aren't linked again later. Unlinking never cancels an appointment: if the two were booked together, both stay booked, the confirmation step says so before you unlink, and the Scheduling card then shows This appointment is also booked for (name) until someone removes them or cancels the booking.

The booking confirmation

Once an appointment is booked, the person booked is sent one confirmation. It names the type of appointment, gives the time in the site's own local time, names the clinic (and the site, where that helps; see below), and says how to change or cancel: the site's phone number when the site has one on file, otherwise an invitation to reply. It goes out whether the booking was made in the website chat, over the phone with the assistant, or by your team with Book appointment.

One message, on one channel. It goes by text when the prospect asked to be contacted by text (or never said) and their number is cleared for clinical texting, and by email otherwise. SMS consent recorded on the prospect's Consents tab counts wherever it was saved: against the prospect, their referral, or the patient record it is linked to. Someone who only typed a phone number into the website chat has not given that clearance, so they are normally confirmed by email. If the prospect asked for email and there is an address on file, email wins. A text confirmation is logged on the record like any other text.

A text is always one message long (160 characters), because a longer text is billed as two. It starts with your clinic's brand name as set in your branding settings, not the account's short name; a clinic with no brand name set is called by its account name. For example:

Lakeside Fertility: your Consultation is confirmed for Friday, September 25 at 10:00 AM. Call 905-555-0100 to change or cancel. Reply STOP to opt out.

When the clinic or site name is long, the text gets shorter in steps until it fits: a shorter date, then a shorter sentence, then Appointment in place of the appointment type, then without the site name. The time, the clinic, with your partner, how to change or cancel and the STOP line are never dropped. The site is named only when it adds something, so a site called "Lakeside Fertility" is not repeated after "Lakeside Fertility Centre".

The location is left out altogether, in the text and the email, when the appointment type is held by phone or video, or when your clinic has only one location, so a patient booked for a phone call isn't told to come in. Otherwise the email carries every detail.

Nothing is sent when there is no phone number or email on the record, when the address has unsubscribed, or when your clinic's outbound patient email is switched off. An appointment recorded as booked in another system is confirmed by that system, not from here. A booking is confirmed once; moving it to a new time is a new booking, so it is confirmed again.

Confirmations are on by default. An administrator can turn them off under Settings, Prospects tab, Booking confirmations.

The patient details form

Rather than emailing a separate demographics form, your clinic can email the patient a link to a form in the referral status portal where they review and complete their own details and their partner's. It asks for the same things as a paper new-patient demographics form.

Sent with the first consult. When a prospect's first consultation is booked, here or recorded as booked in your EMR, the link goes out by email on its own. It is sent once per prospect, so moving or rebooking the consultation doesn't send it again. It is not sent for a nurse intake, for a returning patient whose record was reopened, or when the patient has already confirmed their details. An administrator can turn this off, and set which appointment types count as the first consult, under Settings, Prospects tab, Booking confirmations.

Sending it by hand. On the prospect's Details tab, press Send details update link on the Patient details form card. The prospect needs an email address and a date of birth on their referral. Returned and Withdrawn prospects are not emailed. A message tells you whether the email went out, and the timeline records it, or the reason it wasn't sent (for example, the patient opted out of email). The link works once and expires after 7 days; press the button again to send a fresh one.

When the patient updates their details, your team sees it in four places:

• a Details updated badge beside their name on the list;
• a notification to the prospect's assigned staff member, or to everyone who can edit prospects when nobody is assigned;
• a timeline entry naming the fields that changed, for example Patient updated their details via the portal: City, Partner email. It never shows the values;
• the Patient details form card, which shows everything the patient has on file with their latest changes highlighted, ready to copy into your EMR.

Once the update is in your own records, press Mark reviewed on the card. The badge clears until the patient changes something again.

Availability

Prospect management is enabled per clinic. If you don't see it in your portal, ask your Fertiligent contact to enable it for your plan. Administrators can configure the funnel and automated outreach under Prospects & outreach setup.

Suggest best order is available wherever prospect management is. The suggestions that read what patients wrote are set up per clinic; without them, the ranking comes from status and contact history alone, and the banner above the list says so. The morning refresh runs only for clinics that have pressed Suggest best order at least once. The Replies and the inbox section of Suggestion impact shows only for staff who can open the Reply inbox. The patient details form is filled in through the referral status portal, which is enabled per clinic.