Helping overcome barriers to care, Rogers starts new direct referral process

07/11/24 01:00:pm

A new way to streamline the referral process aims to get patients into our care more quickly and efficiently.

To remove barriers to patient admissions and improve efficiency, Rogers has a new direct referral process for designated external providers. That means screening assessments are waived if that information is already available from trusted referents. Rogers still completes a clinical review.

The goal is to shorten the time between referral and acceptance to about an hour instead of what can often take a day or more and get patients who are ready for treatment into care more quickly.

“This new process reduces the back and forth of arranging a full screening and allows our review team to use the clinical information provided by referents in the community who have already been working with the individual,” says Amanda Puhl, associate director of care coordination. “Furthermore, this new process keeps providers in the loop with where their patients are at in the process so that they can provide support as needed.”

Available through fax and email, direct referral is already in use for outpatient medication management, for TMS, at our PHP/IOP clinics across service lines. and at our residential programs.

In the first month, Rogers completed about 50 referrals through direct referral.

Our Community Relations team continues to expand our list of qualifying direct referral providers.

“The direct referral process gives an uninterrupted flow for our most trusted community providers to access our PHP and IOP services across Rogers,” says Genevieve Fraser, senior director of business intelligence. “This new process collects clinical information directly from the community provider, which allows for the screening time of potential patients to be greatly reduced. The goal is to quickly triage and make recommendations for programming while closing the loop with community provider and patients, resulting in a high level of satisfaction for all involved.”