Making Specialist Referrals and Dealing with Responses 7 Dec 2018

Based on feedback from the referrals centre, here are some miscellaneous points about specialist referrals.

Based on feedback from the referrals centre, here are some miscellaneous points about specialist referrals.

1. If you fax a referral, there’s no need to send a hard copy in the post as well – the fax is sufficient.

3. The requested urgency of our referrals has an impact on the smooth running of the referrals centre. It may be worth considering whether a referral is truly urgent, or whether it could reasonably be dealt with as semi-urgent or routine.
4. Declined referrals are sometimes marked “below FST”. This means “below a financially sustainable threshold”. Unfortunately this reflects the fact that demand usually outstrips the supply of services. The thresholds for different specialities are available on Bay Navigator under Elective Services. It’s worth checking these out periodically as thresholds for referral acceptance can change over time. In contrast, accepted referrals are sometimes marked “FSA” – “first specialist assessment”.

I hope these are useful tips to make your referral workload more efficient.