How to get referrals from discharge planners by being useful.

Understand the job you are asking to join

The honest answer to how to get referrals from discharge planners is to solve a problem they have today. A case manager or social worker on a busy unit is arranging several discharges at once, each with a deadline and a physician asking whether the patient can go. A missing follow-up can hold up the whole plan.

They are not looking for vendors to meet. They want a practice that says yes or no quickly and then does what it said.

Remember that the patient chooses. Discharge planners offer options, so you are asking to be a known, dependable one, not the only one.

Be clear about who you can take

Put it on one page a planner can read in a minute:

• The services your practice provides and the settings you work in: home, facility or office
• Your service area by county or ZIP code, and whether it includes the Metro East
• Patients you are not set up to take
• Coverage stated carefully: which plans the practice participates with, and that you verify each patient
• One phone number, one fax number and the hours someone answers

Planners value the list of who you cannot take. It spares them a wasted referral.

Make the referral itself easy

Ask each hospital or facility how it prefers to send referrals. Some fax, some call and many use an electronic referral system. Fit their process instead of asking them to learn yours.

Name the few records you need:

1. Face sheet with coverage and a working phone number for the patient or caregiver
2. Discharge summary or recent history and physical
3. Medication list
4. Orders and notes relevant to your service
5. Any home health agency or facility involved

Take an incomplete packet when you safely can and chase the rest yourself. Confirm receipt every time. Our discharge planner wound referral checklist shows what a complete wound referral looks like from the hospital side.

Answer fast, and say no well

Give one of three answers: yes, no, or yes once we have these two items. A slow maybe is worse than any of them.

A good no is quick and specific. “We do not cover that ZIP code” or “that plan is not one we participate with” lets the planner move on, and it builds more trust than a yes you cannot keep.

If your first open visit is further out than the patient can wait, say so at the time of referral. Accepting a patient and then scheduling late is how a practice loses a referral source for good.

Close the loop after the patient goes home

Most practices stop at the first visit. The ones planners remember report back:

• The referral was received and the patient was contacted
• The patient was seen, and when
• The patient could not be reached or declined, so the hospital is not assuming care that is not happening

Send your note to the patient’s primary care clinician and the referring physician, within privacy rules and your own policies. Hospitals watch readmission risk after discharge closely, and a practice that reports reliably makes the planner’s next decision easier.

Visit in person, briefly

Ask the department’s manager for ten minutes at a time that suits the team, and follow the hospital’s rules for outside visitors. Bring your one-page summary. Spend most of the time asking questions: which patients are hardest to place, which areas are hardest to cover and what has gone wrong with other practices.

Then act on what you heard, and send a short note afterward naming the person to call. One visit followed by reliable performance is worth more than monthly drop-ins.

Stay inside the rules

Federal and state laws restrict offering or giving anything of value in return for patient referrals, and many hospitals limit gifts and meals from outside providers. Get legal advice before offering anything beyond information.

The relationship should rest on service. If it would not survive without the lunches, it is not a referral relationship.

Keep score for yourself

Track every referral by source in your scheduling and referral records: date received, time to answer, accepted or declined and why, date of first visit and date the report went back. A unit that keeps sending patients outside your area needs a clearer one-pager.

Gateway works with discharge teams across Greater St. Louis and the Metro East and helps practices prepare for and keep up referral relationships, often alongside physician and facility outreach. We make introductions where a practice’s services fit. We do not promise referral volume. Contact us through the practice support inquiry form or at 314-325-0126.

Common questions

Related pages

• Referral relationships
• Physician and facility outreach
• Inquiry follow-up
• Scheduling and referral records
• Hospitals and discharge planners
• Discharge planner referral checklist
• Mobile wound care startup checklist
• Building a wound care formulary