Referrals workflow

A practical guide to how a referral travels through Fertiligent: from the moment it arrives, through review and confirmation, into outreach and booking, and finally into the patient's care journey.

:::info The one idea that ties it all together A referral is just the intake stage. Confirming it is a hand-off, not another step. From that moment, one referral feeds two trackers that run side by side:

• A Prospect — the outreach & booking funnel (call attempts, follow-ups, booked).
• A Patient — the clinical lifecycle (Referred → … → Active).

Once confirmed, the referral freezes and becomes a read-only record of what arrived. Everything after that — chasing the patient, booking the appointment — happens on the Prospect, not the referral. :::

1. The big picture

The whole journey, in one line: stages 1–3 happen in the Referrals inbox; from Confirmed onward you work in the Prospect and Patient records.

Received → Reading it (auto-extraction) → Needs review → Confirmed (read-only)

Prospect (outreach & booking)  ⇄  Patient (Referred → … → Active)

One referral, two trackers. Confirming splits the work; the referral itself stops at Confirmed.

To see whether a confirmed referral got booked, look at the Prospect, not the referral — intake is one job, outreach is another, and they're deliberately kept apart. The referral detail page has an Outreach link that jumps straight to the matching prospect.

2. The Referrals inbox — finding your work

Open Care → Referrals. The inbox is organized into lanes; click a lane to filter:

Lane	What's in it
Needs me	Your real work: referrals waiting for review, plus documents still being read (shown with an "Extracting…" indicator that updates on its own when ready).
Failed	Documents the system couldn't process. Open one and click Retry.
Auto-confirmed	High-confidence referrals the system accepted for you. Each has a 24-hour Undo window in case you want to step in and review it yourself.
Confirmed	Accepted referrals — read-only history.
Rejected	Declined referrals — history.

A summary strip at the top of the inbox shows how many referrals were handled automatically, the auto-confirm accuracy over the last few days, and a pipeline-health indicator. Each row shows: received date & file name, patient (with a "+ Partner" name and a "Results attached" indicator where relevant), date of birth, reason & referring physician, why it was flagged, and a confidence score. The list refreshes in real time.

3. Reviewing a referral

Click a row in Needs me to open it. The page shows the extracted information in five sections:

• Letter details — date of referral, who it's addressed to, urgency, notes.
• Patient — name, DOB, health card (OHIP), contact details, address.
• Partner — the same fields for a partner, when present.
• Referring physician — name, billing number, fax, contact.
• Reason for referral — the reason code and any free text.

Handle the flagged fields

Anything the system is unsure about is gathered at the top under "Needs your attention." For each one you either:

• Accept — the extracted value is correct, keep it; or
• Edit — type the correct value yourself.

You must make a decision on every flagged field before you can confirm.

Resolve who the patient is

The system tries to match the referral to an existing patient:

• Clear match → it links automatically.
• Several possible matches → you pick the right patient from the candidates, or choose create new.
• No match → confirming will create a brand-new record.

Watch for the banners

• Cross-attachment mismatch — the cover letter names one person but the attached results name another. You must acknowledge it before confirming.
• Related referrals — shows this patient's other Confirmed/Rejected referrals, with links to each.
• Couple link — the system suggests this referral pairs with a partner's referral. It only suggests; you click Confirm couple or Not a couple.

Then: Confirm, Reject, or Retry

• Confirm — accepts the referral (see below). Blocked until all flagged fields are decided, any ambiguous match is resolved, and any cross-attachment mismatch is acknowledged.
• Reject — declines it; you'll be asked for a reason.
• Retry — re-runs the document through extraction (useful on a Failed item).

:::warning Re-engagement safety check If the patient you're confirming into was previously marked Declined, Lost, or Do-Not-Contact, the system stops and asks you to explicitly confirm that you want to re-engage them. This prevents accidentally re-contacting someone who asked not to be. :::

4. What happens the moment you confirm

A referral can be accepted two ways: manually (you open it and click Confirm) or auto-confirmed (a high-confidence extraction accepts itself and sits in the Auto-confirmed lane with a 24-hour Undo).

Either way, the system does the following automatically, in one go:

1. Saves your corrections for the record, and clears anything you marked unreadable.
2. Finds the patient — links an existing one, or creates a new patient at status Referred.
3. Runs the re-engagement check before going further.
4. Creates or links the Prospect — matched on phone, email, and name, or a new one at Not started. A "Referral received" note lands on the prospect's timeline.
5. Marks the referral Confirmed — read-only from here on.

5. Driving the booking — on the Prospect

From here you work the Prospect record. Get to it from the Outreach link on the referral, or from Prospect → Records.

Not started → 1st contact → 2nd contact → Pending → Booked
                                              ↕
                                          Returned (off-ramp at any point)

Booked → the patient moves to Active, with the appointment date recorded.

You move the stages by hand — logging a call does not move the funnel. Booked is the one stage that reaches back to the patient record.

On the Prospect page you can:

• Log a contact attempt — choose an outcome (No answer, Left message, Reached, or Other), the date, and an optional note. This adds an entry to the timeline but does not change the stage — it's a record of the call, not a status move.
• Move the outreach stage — when you're ready, set the stage (Not started → 1st contact → …). Two special cases: Booked requires an appointment date, and Returned requires a return reason.
• Add notes — a per-change status note and a general notes field.
• Read the timeline — every status change, call, note, the original "Referral received" entry, and system events, in order.

:::tip Booked is the moment it all connects When you mark a prospect Booked with an appointment date, the patient is automatically promoted to Active, and the appointment date is recorded for reporting (time-from-referral-to-booking). That's the single place outreach touches the clinical record — everything else on the prospect is yours to drive. :::

6. The patient phone line

When a patient calls in about their referral, an automated voice agent can handle the conversation. It is deliberately cautious:

Match by phone → Verify with DOB (3 tries → callback) → Look up referral (last 180 days) → Speak a safe status

The only things it is allowed to say: the referral was received and is in review; it's confirmed and staff will call to schedule; or — if it can't determine either — it queues a callback for a human to follow up (needs human follow-up, or not found).

In the same call, the agent can offer to collect missing details — health card (OHIP) number, OHIP version code, email, or mobile number. Nothing the caller says is written onto the referral automatically — it is saved as a draft for a staff member to review.

What you do with a call

• Open Voice → Dashboard to see recent calls, then open a call's detail.
• If the caller provided missing details, you'll see them as a draft — review and apply with one click to fill the referral. A person always stays in the loop.
• If the call ended in "Needs follow-up" or "Not found," a callback has been queued for the team to action.

7. Quick reference — "Where do I look for…?"

I want to know…	Look at…
What came in on the referral	Referral record (read-only once Confirmed)
Whether we've reached the patient / booking progress	Prospect — call attempts & outreach stage
Whether the appointment is booked	Prospect at stage Booked
The appointment date	Prospect — entered when you set Booked (also feeds reporting; not shown on the referral page)
Where the patient is in their care journey	Patient — Referred → … → Active
To jump from a referral to its outreach	The Outreach link on the referral detail
A detail the patient gave by phone	Voice → call detail, then apply the draft to the referral

8. Glossary of statuses

Referral status (intake inbox): Uploaded, Extracting, Needs review, Auto-confirmed, Confirmed, Rejected, Failed. Confirmed (and Auto-confirmed) is the finish line — the referral has no status beyond it.

Outreach stage (Prospect): Not started, 1st contact, 2nd contact, Pending, Booked, Returned.

Patient lifecycle: Referred, Scheduled, Active, On hold, Discharged, Declined, Lost, Do not contact.

:::info In one sentence A referral's job ends at Confirmed — after that the Prospect tracks getting the patient booked and the Patient tracks the care journey, with Booked being the single moment the two reconnect. :::