It's Time to Fix Referrals
in Healthcare
Here's a story that's become all too familiar in medicine:
A physician sent a referral last Tuesday. The staff faxed it, cover sheet and all. But when the physician called the specialist a few days later to confirm, their office said they never received it. Maybe the referral got lost in a pile of papers or a fax queue. Maybe it got stuck in the prior auth approval process. Or maybe it never made it at all.
The patient is left in limbo, waiting for weeks or even months on end to see a specialist. And the referring physician is left holding the bag — forced to explain why potentially important specialty care will be delayed for their patient due to avoidable, bureaucratic delays.
We can't agree on much in healthcare, but if there's one thing we can align on as physicians, it's this: Referrals are broken, everywhere and for everyone.
Whether it's primary care doctors or specialists, patients, health systems, or even insurance companies, we've all had a bad experience with referrals. Why is it that we can now treat and even prevent cancers, extend life by decades, and provide incredible care with the world's information at our fingertips, but when it comes to referring a patient from one person to another, we're stuck in 1985 workflows?
It's time to change the status quo.
We're building a movement 
to fix referrals 
in healthcare.
After talking with hundreds of physicians and practice staff all across the country, we're convinced there is a better way. And we're dedicated to making this a reality in every community across the country.
We're not talking about a fax machine with a better interface. Or a cumbersome software plugin for your EMR. But instead, an end-to-end solution where patients and physicians are in charge, not the "system." Where we finally create a private, direct HIPAA-compliant communication channel that clinicians fall in love with. Where AI helps match your referral preferences, pair you with the right specialist every time, automate manual uploads, and gives you real-time visibility about the status of the referral for both parties and your patients.
Or in other words, the way it always should have been.
Imagine that we start replacing sentences like this:
"I have no idea what happened to that referral."
"The patient came back three months later, no one ever called them."
"I sent it. I don't know what happened after that."
With outcomes like this:
Specialist wait times that drop from 6 or 12 weeks to 2 weeks.
Thriving independent practices that can communicate and send referrals seamlessly in every city.
Reduced administrative overhead, phone calls, and bureaucratic headaches for primary care practices.
More patients, and more appropriate and worked up patients, coming in the door for specialists.
The fax machine destroyed, once and for all.
And the next generation of young physicians feeling more connected, less siloed, and like they actually have tight-knit relationships with clinicians in the community — the kind of deep connections which largely got fractured during Covid.
We believe this is not only possible — it's mission critical. Because our patients deserve clinicians and staff who can actually follow through. And as clinicians, we deserve a system that helps them do it.
The old way is simply not good enough.
If you're inspired or have ideas for what a better referral system should look like in healthcare, we want to work with you. Join us. Add your name using the button below to show your support that referrals need fixing.
And get in touch with your ideas!
Let's build.
Offcall Co-founder, MDCalc Founder
Private practice physician leader
We're building a movement to fix referrals in healthcare.
Download to join the waitlistMedicine 
is complex enough.
Referrals 
shouldn't be.
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