A private clinician wants to order a panel for a patient sitting in front of her. She has used the lab twice, cannot remember whether she has an account, cannot find the form, and does not know the cut off for today's collection.
She orders from a different laboratory. Not because it is better, but because its process is written down.
The checklist
Publish these and referral volume follows.
1. How to open a referral account
What is required, who to contact, how long it takes and whether tests can be ordered before it is active. This is the first barrier and it is almost never documented.
2. What a requisition must contain
Patient identifiers, requesting clinician details, tests requested and the clinical information that helps interpretation. Published as a list, not implied by a form.
3. The container and volume for each test
The single most common cause of rejection. A table by test, with container type and minimum volume, prevents most repeat samples.
4. Collection and transport arrangements
Courier times, cut offs, drop off points, weekend arrangements and what to do with a sample taken after the last collection.
5. Sample stability
How long a sample remains suitable, what temperature it needs and what happens to one held overnight. Clinicians in small practices need this constantly.
6. Turnaround times by test
Published as working days from receipt, not from despatch, with urgent options and what qualifies. Ambiguity here generates chasing calls all week.
7. How results are delivered
Portal, integration, secure email or post, and how access is arranged for a new practice. Result delivery is where most clinician frustration actually lives.
8. What happens when a sample is rejected
How the practice is told, how quickly, whether a repeat is free and who contacts the patient. Handled badly this loses a referrer permanently, as in test booking and preparation questions for diagnostic labs.
9. Test selection guidance
Which panel covers what, how tests differ and who to speak to for advice. It saves the laboratory money and it makes you the default choice.
10. Pricing and invoicing for private work
Price list, whether the patient or practice is invoiced, account terms and how a self funding patient is handled, which relates to GP and clinic referral questions for private testing.
10b. How a new practice starts using you tomorrow
A clinician who has decided to refer wants the shortest possible path from decision to first sample. Publishing a plain sequence, what to send, who confirms it, when the first collection can happen and what arrives in the first delivery, converts an intention into a referral before the enthusiasm fades.
10c. What happens with urgent and unexpected results
Clinicians need to know how a significantly abnormal result reaches them, how quickly, by what route and what happens if they are unavailable. It is the arrangement that matters most and the one least often written down anywhere a referrer can find it.
11. Who to contact for what
Clinical queries, account queries, missing results and urgent matters, with the hours each is available. Clinicians waste more time finding the right person than on anything else.
12. Answer process questions at any hour
Clinics run evening sessions and questions arrive then, and the same access problem appears in level test and course questions from language learners.
13. Test it against the real questions
Use the enquiries you have actually received rather than the ones you expect, which is the method in testing an assistant with real past enquiries.
Getting started
Publish account setup, requisition requirements, containers, cut offs and turnaround, then answer process questions at any hour. SpideyChat for healthcare organisations answers from your published pages. Try SpideyChat on your own site, or read about answers on the features page.