Every incoming referral read, matched, scheduled and closed out
A done-for-you referral processing automation is an AI agent that reads incoming referrals from fax, the EHR inbox, Direct messages or the NHS e-Referral Service, pulls out patient and order details, checks them against your acceptance checklist, requests anything missing and contacts the patient to book once a clinician accepts. Triage and acceptance stay with your clinicians. BufferSol builds, connects and configures it, and it is live in 3 to 6 weeks.
- Live in 3 to 6 weeks
- Works with Epic, Oracle Health (Cerner) and more
- People approve what matters
Is this you?
Specialty practices, hospital outpatient services, imaging centers and therapy providers that receive referrals by fax, portal and electronic referral and lose track of some before the patient is ever seen.
- Referrals arrive by fax, email, portal and phone, and nobody has one list of them all.
- Staff re-key patient details from faxed pages into the EHR.
- Referrals sit incomplete for days while someone waits for notes or insurance details.
- Referring offices call to ask whether their patient was ever seen.
- You cannot say how many referrals came in last month or how many became visits.
Today vs done for you
The current way, and the new way
What your team does by hand today, and what the automation does instead, step by step.
How it works today
- Referrals land on the fax server, in the EHR inbox, by email or through e-RS, each checked by a different person.
- A coordinator reads each one, searches for the patient in the EHR and types in demographics, insurance and the reason for referral.
- If notes, imaging or insurance details are missing, they call or fax the referring office and wait.
- A clinician reviews the packet for triage; the coordinator then calls the patient, often several times, to book.
- Status lives in a spreadsheet, and the consult note goes back to the referrer only when someone remembers.
What it quietly costs you
- · Referrals that are never scheduled are lost patients and lost revenue that no report shows.
- · Referring practices send patients elsewhere when they cannot get a straight answer about status.
- · Delays in seeing referred patients carry clinical and liability risk.
How it works done for you
- The agent watches every referral channel: the fax server (read with document AI), the EHR inbox, Direct messages and the NHS e-Referral Service worklist.
- It extracts patient details, referring provider, reason for referral and attachments, then matches the patient record using strict rules and a duplicate check.
- It compares the packet with your acceptance checklist and asks the referring office for missing items by fax, email or portal message.
- Complete packets go to a clinician's triage queue with a structured summary on top; the clinician decides priority and acceptance.
- Once accepted, the agent contacts the patient by text, email or phone to book, and follows up on a set schedule if they do not respond.
- It updates the referrer when the patient is booked and seen, and sends the consult note back once it is signed.
- Every step, document and message is logged against the referral, so you can report on volume, delays and outcomes.
Your people
What changes for your team
| Role | Today | Done for you |
|---|---|---|
| Referral coordinator | Reading faxes, re-keying details, chasing missing notes and calling patients. | Handling the referrals the agent flags as unclear and building relationships with top referring offices. |
| Triage clinician | Reading incomplete packets and waiting for the rest to arrive. | Triaging complete packets with a structured summary at the top. |
| Service manager | Guessing referral volume and conversion from spreadsheets. | Seeing referral volume, time to first visit and leakage by referrer every week. |
The numbers
What it's worth to you
Estimate the time and cost you get back with your own numbers. We baseline the real figures in week 1 and track these KPIs from day one.
Example inputs · change them to yours
The automated share covers reading, data entry, missing-document requests, patient outreach and status updates; triage and acceptance stay with clinicians.
Staff time back
120 hours a month
About 0.8 full-time people freed for higher-value work
Capacity reclaimed a month
$3,120
A year
$37,440
An estimate from your inputs only. In week 1 we measure your real baseline, so results are tracked against your own numbers.
Referral to scheduled
Days from receipt to booked appointment, baselined from the last 90 days of referrals.
Referral conversion
Share of referrals received that become a completed first visit.
Incomplete referrals
Share of referrals that needed a follow-up for missing information, by referring office.
Loop closure
Share of completed visits where the consult note went back to the referrer within your target time.
Manual entry time
Coordinator minutes per referral, from a time sample before launch and the activity log after.
34.8%
only half
21%
Works with the tools you already use
- Epic
- Oracle Health (Cerner)
- athenahealth
- eClinicalWorks
- NHS e-Referral Service
- EMIS Web
- SystmOne
- RightFax
- Twilio
- Microsoft 365
Guardrails built in
- Clinicians make every triage, priority and acceptance decision; the agent only prepares, requests and routes.
- HIPAA: a BAA with BufferSol and every sub-processor, minimum-necessary EHR access and encrypted document storage.
- UK: UK GDPR, NHS data security guidance and sign-off from your information governance lead before go-live.
- Patient matching uses strict rules; any uncertain match goes to a person instead of merging records.
- A full audit log of every document read, field written and message sent.
Why it hurts today
What teams say about this work
Common complaints from operators, reviewers and industry research.
A study of primary care referrals in a large US health system found that most referral scheduling attempts never led to a documented completed specialist visit, with low scheduling rates a main cause.
Family physicians describe referrals getting lost through missing information and communication failures, with primary care and specialists each blaming the other for the gap.
Practice leaders say faxed paper referrals, EHR limits and specialists who insist on their own referral forms keep them stuck with manual tracking.
In the UK, NHS hospitals were criticized for staying attached to fax machines long after electronic referral became the expected route.
Done for you
Live in 3 to 6 weeks
We do the build, the integrations and the rollout. Your team gives us access, reviews the pilot and approves go-live.
- 1
Week 1
Discovery and access
We map the workflow with your team, agree the outcomes and KPIs, measure today's baseline and get secure access to your tools.
- 2
Weeks 2–3
Build and connect
We build the agents and connect your systems, with your rules, approval steps, permissions and logging.
- 3
Weeks 3–5
Test and pilot
We test on your real history, then run a pilot on live work while your team reviews what the agent does.
- 4
Weeks 4–6
Go live and hand over
We roll out in stages, train your team, hand over dashboards and runbooks, and keep improving it with you.
Executive Ask: ask your business anything
One plain-English assistant connected to every system you run: CRM, helpdesk, ERP and accounting, HR, inbox and docs. Leaders get sourced answers in seconds and can trigger actions with approval. It respects everyone's existing permissions and logs every answer.
See Executive AskAsk it, for example
- How many referrals came in last month, and how many of those patients have been seen?
- Which referring practices send us the most incomplete referrals?
- Which accepted referrals still have no appointment booked after five days?
Can it read faxed referrals?
Yes. Most practices still receive many referrals by fax. The agent reads each faxed page with document AI, splits multi-patient batches, pulls out demographics, insurance, reason for referral and attachments, and writes them to the referral record. Low-confidence fields are highlighted for a coordinator to confirm instead of being written blindly, and the original fax image stays attached for reference.
Who decides whether a referral is accepted or urgent?
Your clinicians do. The agent checks the packet against your administrative checklist, asks for anything missing and puts a structured summary at the top, but triage, priority and acceptance are clinical decisions. The agent never downgrades or declines a referral on its own. If a referral contains red-flag wording that your clinicians define, it alerts the triage clinician right away.
Does it work with the NHS e-Referral Service?
For UK providers we work with your e-RS worklists and the integration routes your trust or practice has already approved, alongside EMIS Web or SystmOne. We follow UK GDPR and NHS data security guidance, complete a data protection impact assessment with your information governance lead and keep data in approved UK hosting. Your team signs off before anything goes live.
How long does setup take?
It is live in 3 to 6 weeks. We start by sampling a few weeks of real referrals to build the extraction and checklist rules, then connect fax, EHR and messaging channels. The agent runs in review mode first, with coordinators confirming each record, and moves to normal operation once your team is happy with its accuracy.
What does it cost?
Price depends on referral volume, the number of channels and specialties, and your EHR integration. We review your current referral process on a short scoping call and then send a fixed written quote. We do not publish prices because scope varies a lot between a single clinic and a multi-site service; the quote follows that call.
Pairs well with
Operations & Supply Chain
Document Intake & Data Extraction
Bills of lading, packing slips and forms read straight into your systems
See the outcomeHealthcare & Clinics
Patient Intake & Appointment Scheduling
Every patient call and intake form handled before the front desk is buried
See the outcomeHealthcare & Clinics
Insurance Verification & Prior Authorization
Coverage checked and prior auths filed before the patient is on the schedule
See the outcomeSources
- Closing the Referral Loop: an Analysis of Primary Care Referrals to Specialists in a Large Health System, Journal of General Internal Medicine (PubMed)
- Are Your Patient Referrals Getting Lost in the Shuffle?, American Academy of Family Physicians
- Your practice's referral management may only be as good as the EHR you're using, MGMA
- NHS hospitals accused of being ‘stubbornly attached’ to fax machines, Digital Health
Get Referral Processing done for you
Tell us about your volumes and tools. A senior engineer replies within one business day with scope, timeline and cost.
Live in 3 to 6 weeks · Priced after a short call · Company emails only