Skip to main content

The referral status portal

Someone who has been referred to your clinic but hasn't become a patient yet still has questions: did you get my referral?, what happens next?, do you need anything from me? The referral status portal answers those without tying up a coordinator, and collects the details you'd otherwise chase by phone.

It's separate from the patient portal, which covers people already in active care.

How someone gets in​

There's no account to create. Your clinic emails the prospect a secure link. Opening it signs them in, and they then confirm their date of birth once per session before anything about their referral is shown.

The date of birth is the gate, so an email forwarded to somebody else doesn't expose the referral behind it. Repeated wrong answers lock the attempt out.

What a prospect can do​

  • See where their referral stands, in plain language rather than internal status codes. There are four steps: Referral received, we're reviewing it; We're reaching out to schedule your first visit; Your first appointment is being scheduled (also shown while only a nurse intake is booked); and Your first appointment is booked, once the first consultation is booked. A prospect who was returned, withdrew or was marked Repeat sees only Please message us for an update, never the reason.
  • Fill in what's missing. The few details your team still needs are presented as a short form.
  • Review and confirm their demographics, including partner details. For Ontario clinics this covers partner OHIP number and version code, which are needed to establish funded-cycle eligibility. A health card number must be 10 digits and pass the card's check digit, so a mistyped number is caught before it is saved. See The patient details email below.
  • Book their nurse intake call, when your clinic sends a booking offer.

Once a prospect confirms their demographics, that confirmation is stamped on the record, so your team can see the details came from the patient rather than from a coordinator's best guess.

The patient details email​

Your clinic can email a prospect a link straight to their details form, in place of a separate demographics form. Your team sends it with Send details update link on the prospect's record, and it goes out by itself when the first consultation is booked; see The patient details form for when it is sent.

  • The email is titled Please review your details and carries a Review my details button. The link works once and expires after 7 days. A patient who opens an expired link is offered a general portal link instead, and your team can send a fresh one.
  • The patient confirms their date of birth, then reviews and updates the form and presses Confirm.

The form asks what a paper new-patient demographics form asks, for the patient and for the partner: name as it appears on the health card, date of birth, health card number and version code, sex assigned at birth, gender identity, street address, city, postal code, mobile, home and work phone (with extension) and email.

  • Same address as mine copies the patient's address to the partner.
  • The partner's email must be different from the patient's, because each of them gets their own portal sign-in.
  • A value already on file that fails a check, such as a health card number misread from the referral letter, is flagged as soon as the form opens, so the patient can see which field to correct before they confirm. The portal never clears a number already on file; it only refuses a new one that fails the check. If a patient says the form won't accept their card, the number is almost always mistyped: ask them to read it again from the card.

When the patient confirms, your team is told, and the changed fields are highlighted on the prospect's record for copying into your own system.

When the portal can't identify someone​

Proving a date of birth unlocks all of that person's referral journeys, so somebody referred more than once sees them together rather than having to open a different link for each.

If two different people would match the same sign-in (twins, or partners sharing a family email address and a date of birth) the portal refuses access rather than guessing or asking the visitor to pick a name from a list. Those cases need a coordinator, and will come to your team instead.

Emails from the portal​

An invitation says that secure access is ready. It only announces a waiting message when a secure message has actually been written, subject line, inbox preview and body alike. The wording stays deliberately plain in every case: the email names no clinic and nothing about why you are in touch, because it may be read on a lock screen.

Portal invitations and booking offers are notification emails, so they follow the same rules as the rest of your clinic's outbound mail: they don't send while outbound notification email is switched off, and they carry an unsubscribe option. See Notifications.

Availability​

The referral status portal is off by default and enabled per clinic. Ask your Fertiligent contact to turn it on.