Whether patients are referred to or from your practice, it’s essential to track how patients found you and track treatment referrals. Open Dental offers various methods for managing referrals based on your needs, and this post will explore the different types of referrals and their associated reports.
Referral List
Before you start entering referrals, add referral sources to your Referral List. This list can include both incoming (who referred a patient to you) and outgoing (who you refer patients to) referrals. You can add or update referral sources at any time. The list can include contact information, notes, and even a Commlog of conversations with the referral source.
Referrals don’t have to just be specific people or patients, you can even add referral sources for things like Facebook or Google to track how patients found you!
Patient Referral
In the Family Module, you can easily track patient referrals. In the Patient Information area, is a green section for referrals.
You can add a new referral for the patient or view details on existing referrals by double-clicking the referral area.
You can add incoming referrals (Referred From) and outgoing referrals (Refer To); these are both included in reports. If you’d like to add a referral but don’t want to track it on reports, you can use the Custom option.
Procedure Referrals
If you’re referring out a specific procedure for treatment, you can attach a referral in the Procedure Info window.
Referral Slips & Letters
You can easily create Referral Slips to give to patients and Referral Letters to send to providers.
Use the Referral Slip button in the Referrals for Patient window to create a slip or use the Letter dropdown main toolbar to select a referral source and create a Referral Letter.
TECH TIP: Referral Letters and Referral Slips are completely customizable from Sheets. You can even attach a specific Referral Slip to a referral source if they use a custom slip!
Referral Reports
There are three built-in reports for tracking referrals.
- Referrals – Raw Report: This is an advanced report used to build a query for referral sources. This can be helpful if you want to easily generate a list of contact information for referral sources.
- Referral Analysis Report: This report analyzes the incoming referral count and production within a date range.
- Referred Procedure Tracking Report: Use this report to track the status of referrals attached to a procedure.
If you are looking for something more specific that our standard reports don’t cover, see our Query Examples Page.
Using referrals in Open Dental, you will be able to evaluate how patients find your practice and track treatment that is referred out from your practice. Providing you another way to evaluate your growth and determining other services you may want to offer. If you need help setting up and using referrals, we’re here for you.
Information in this post reflects features available in Open Dental Version 24.2. For the most up-to-date information, please visit our manual.