Specialist Consults

A consult request is a first impression

For a cardiology, GI or surgical practice, the first consult call is when a patient decides whether you are easy to reach. A referred patient who reaches voicemail twice may well try the next name on the list their primary care physician gave them.

Consult calls also carry more detail than a follow-up: the referring physician, the reason, prior workup, and sometimes a clear expectation from the referring office about how soon the patient should be seen.

Matching the consult to the right physician

Many specialty groups route consults by subspecialty or physician preference. One surgeon takes hernias and gallbladders, another only hands. You describe those preferences as rules, and Katie offers new consult times only with the physicians who take that kind of case.

When the reason does not clearly fit a rule, Katie does not guess the subspecialty. The request goes to staff with the caller's description so someone qualified can decide where it belongs.

Surgical and routine consults

Most practices split consults into a few groups and treat each one differently. The split usually mirrors how your coordinators already think about their work, so it is quick to write down.

• Routine consults: booked into eClinicalWorks at your new consult length
• Surgical consults that need records reviewed first: captured in full for the coordinator
• Second opinions: marked so staff can request outside records
• Physician-to-physician calls: transferred while you are open

When the referring office wants it sooner

Sometimes a referring physician's office calls to ask that a patient be seen quickly. Katie does not judge that clinically. Your rules decide what happens, which usually means a transfer to clinical staff while you are open and an urgent mark on the summary either way.

If your physicians keep a few consult slots open each week for these requests, write that into the rules so the slots are protected from routine bookings.

What the consulting physician sees

By the day of the visit, the physician should know why the patient is coming and who sent them. The consult summary carries that. With MedReception Autopilot it can sit in the patient's eClinicalWorks chart, so the physician reading the chart before walking in sees the phone history alongside the referral.

It also helps when the consult does not happen. If a patient cancels or never books, the summary shows what was offered and what the patient said, which is the first thing a referring office will ask about.