8 min read
How to get referrals from hospital discharge planners
A practical week for a home-care or hospice liaison. No ads required.
Name the person, not the hospital
A hospital is not a referrer. The referrer is a discharge planner, a case manager, a social worker, or the physician liaison who actually places the next patient. In the US that is often a hospital case management department and the admissions lead at a skilled nursing facility. In the UK it is the ward discharge team, the local-authority broker, and the GP practice that already knows the family. In Canada it is hospital discharge, the provincial home-care coordinator, and the residence director. Write the person鈥檚 name, title, and the phone that works after 4pm.
CareLoop stores that person on the organisation. The demonstration directories in Austin, Manchester and Toronto are illustrative names so you can see the shape. They are not your market and they are not customer results.
Start with the buildings you can actually staff
Write down the hospitals and skilled nursing facilities inside a drive you will make twice a month. If a building is outside that ring, it is not a target yet. A service area exists so the map does not flatter you with pins you will never visit.
Ask what they need this month: weekday starts, a language, bariatric experience, overnight cover, a same-day nursing visit, or a wheelchair van with a confirmed window. A generic capabilities PDF is how you become the agency they do not call.
What to cover in the first fifteen minutes
Capacity for the next ten days. The payers you actually bill. The cases you decline, said out loud. The phone a planner can reach after 4pm. How they will hear a status without chasing your inbox. Then stop.
Do not open with a rate sheet, a gift, or a story about how busy you are. Planners already have three agencies who are busy. They need to know whether you can take Thursday鈥檚 patient.
One introduction, then a status they can see
Book the introduction on a link with real open slots. On this product the meeting is recorded in CareLoop. Google and Microsoft are not connected, so do not promise it will appear on an outside calendar.
When they send someone, the status is received, contacted, assessed, accepted or declined, then service started. The partner portal shows that path, a reference code, initials and an urgency. It does not show the clinical note. A text or email can carry the code and the new state. It cannot carry a diagnosis.
How the outreach actually runs
Approve the partner first. Then a sequence can enroll them. The demonstration sequence is an email the same day, a call task at 72 hours if there is no reply, and a second email at 168 hours with a one-page profile. Messages on this host are written to a sandbox. They are not delivered.
LinkedIn is not a channel in the product. If you send a connection note, you do it yourself and you log the visit on the partner. UK PECR and Canadian CASL block email and SMS enrollment until a consent basis and a capture date are stored. The US workspace records the relationship and does not invent a legal opinion.
Keep score on the relationship, not the ad
A planner who sent four people and then went quiet is more important than a new name. Recency, the number of touches, referrals in ninety days and whether they reply are enough to rank a book. Dormant is a stage, not an insult.
If you log a coffee, log the amount. The log is for your file. It is not permission, and it is not a CareLoop gift. Counsel still owns Anti-Kickback, Stark, and your own policy.