How to create an outbound referral

Outbound referrals record services you are referring a patient to - either at an external practice or an internal doctor or location within HealthTrack. When you refer to an internal doctor or location, HealthTrack automatically creates a corresponding inbound referral for that service.

Outbound referrals appear on the patient's Patient Management screen only. Unlike inbound referrals, they do not attach to bookings or invoices.

Creating an Outbound Referral

Navigate to the Clinical Summary tab.

Click Referral to open the outbound referral form.

Populate the Validity Dates section as required.
- In the Issued field, enter the date you are issuing the referral.
- In the First Use field, enter the date of the patient's first appointment for this referral.
- Set the Valid To period - select 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, or Indefinite. HealthTrack calculates the expiry date based on the First Use date.

To set a period that doesn't match the preset options, click Custom and enter a date directly in the Valid To field.

Populate additional Referral Details as required.

Class: select whether this is a General Referral, a Request, or a Referral including a Test Request.
Type: select Standard, Emergency, Lost Request, Remote Exemption, Not Required, or Grandfathering Provision.
Follow up task (optional): Add a reminder as a follow-up task if needed - the task will be added to the task list.
In-Hospital Service: tick this check-box if required.
Optional fields: Populate the Category, Purpose, Original Stored At, or Referral Disposition (for example, send written report, update care plan) fields if-needed.

Select the Referring and Referred To Doctors or locations.
- Referring Doctor: confirm the correct doctor is displayed. This field defaults to the logged-on Doctor.
- Referred To: select the 'Internal' or 'External' radio options.

The Send Method populates automatically from the referred doctor's distribution settings. If no distribution method is configured - the Send Method defaults to Print:

If a Document and Report Distribution method is configured in the Referring MO Database, the configured method displays. If the doctor receives electronic correspondence, the referral is sent electronically; otherwise it is flagged for printing.

In the Referral Context field, enter the reason for the referral and any relevant clinical details.
- You can use Quick Text to insert pre-written content. The Medication, Procedures, and Condition tags automatically insert current patient information.
- Select Manage Attachments to attach a document already in the patient's file. Click Import New Document to import and attach a scanned copy of the referral.
Select Preview to review the referral before sending, or click Save & Send to save and dispatch it.