Referrers and/or Associates can be Providers, other Clients or Marketing Leads (Your Web, Yellow Pages, ad campaigns, etc).

Current Referrals are required in order to claim a rebate from Medicare.

• Go to Regular Tasks - Clients - <select Client> - Referrers and Associates 
• On selecting Add, both the Date of Letter and Commencement Date fields populate with today's date
• Referral details are normally entered when booking an Initial Consultation. Thus, the Commencement Date is today's date
• Ensure the Date of Letter is the date the letter/referral was written as it is the Date of Letter that Medicare refer to for claiming
• Medicare determines the commencement date by the Item Code being claimed (104 or 110) and the Date of Service
• Should the Referrer's Provider Number not be active at the Date of Commencement, Medicare refer to the Date of Letter as the Provider may have been active at that time
• When creating an appointment or raising an invoice, DCM informs you that there is no current referral
• Referrals are not required for GP and Allied Health services
• There is the option to Suppress Referrals Message in Utilities - Entities for each Entity

Reporting on Referrals

• Reports - Referrers
• Other Reports also include Filter by Referrer
• Contact Management - Referrers/Surgeons and locate a Referrer and select Report on the sidebar

Adding Referral

If you do not enter Referral details before raising an invoice or invoice/receipt but you enter the details after, the referral is not automatically associated with this transaction. You must edit the transaction for the Referral to appear and save

• In Referrals and Associates select Add or press Alt+A
• Commence typing the Referrer's Lastname
• Select if existing.
• Select [...] should you need to edit the Referrers Details (e.g.: they may have a New Location/Provider Number)
• Select [+] should they be a new referrer or have a new Location/Provider Number
• Select the Location if they have more than one.
• Both the Date of Letter and the Commencement Date default to today's date or the date you have selected on the Calendar Control
• The Valid for period is dependent on the Referrer Category
  • GP defaults to 12 months
  • Specialist defaults to 3 months
  • You can also select.
    • 1 Indefinite, or
    • x Number of Episodes
• Date of Letter is the Date the Referral Letter was written
• Other options
  • Reference
  • Do not use as a referral should you just want to record detail and not have them available to select on Appointment or Invoice
  • Entity being referred to so only see the Referral if that Entity is selected
  • Comments
  • Right-click on the Referral and select
    • Associate to open Client Communications to select a Referral to associate. Once selected, right-click menu includes View Referral Communication
    • Audit
    • Copy Cell to just copy content of the selected cell
    • Go to Referrer
    • Print Label
    • Scan Referral. Once scanned, right-click menu includes View scanned Referral
    • Unassociate

From the Appointment form

• On making an appointment, the current Referral is populated. If more than one current referral, you are prompted to select
• If no current Referral and Suppress Referral Message is not selected, there is the prompt to Add

From the List View - Select Ref/Surg

• If creating Theatre Lists for Hospital, Anaesthetist or Assistant in Surgery where the Referrer is the Surgeon, you can in the List or Calendar View select the Ref/Surg at the top of The CONTROL Centre (also the Location, Hospital, Assistant and Anaesthetist) and this detail will then prepopulate thus creating the Referral automatically.

Feeding in from Upstream Applications

• DCM reads in HL7 messages from Upstream Applications and if this detail includes Referral detail, this is added automatically.