Author Archives: Susannah Birch

The healthcare industry is one of the last to step into the field of technology but it’s a step that many doctors will soon have to take to maintain their communication with colleagues and patients. It’s also important to be aware of how to manage brand reputation on the Internet.

So what does every medical practice need to succeed in the world where technology meets healthcare?

1. An email address

Surprisingly, a large number of practices don’t have email addresses. This can impact on their working relationship with other practices and also their patients. It can make it difficult to track online listings, such as on Google Places and receive important updates from medical organisations such as the AAPM, RACGP and AMA.

2. A good clinical software system

Keeping track of patient records on programs not designed for the purpose can create a bigger burden on reception staff and make tracking down information less time efficient and more complicated. A good clinical software program will help you maintain records, provide links to up to date medical information, let you backup your records securely and provide integrations with major medical resources and programs.

3. Electronic referral tracking

Many leading organisations are calling on medical professionals to flick the fax because of how insecure and illegible they often are – it’s very common for faxes to get lost or even get sent to the wrong fax number. GPs also have no way of knowing if a patient ever followed through on a referral after the patient leaves their practice. MEDrefer allows GPs and referring Specialists to track the entire referral process from the appointment time and date through to the final report and offers a range of other marketing, data storage and integration benefits to GPs, Specialists and Allied Health professionals.

4. A website

With many patients now using a Google search as the first step in finding a practitioner, you need to make sure that you’re one of the first practices they set eyes on.  You don’t need a fancy expensive website but at the very least, you need to stake your place in cyber space. A website can be as simple as one page with a slogan describing your practice, a paragraph about your services, an embedded Google map and your contact details. Talk to us about your requirements for a practice website

5. A Facebook page

Facebook is one of the first places patients will search for a local business and it’s also one of the first places they’ll leave a good (or bad) review. Many practices are not even aware that they may already have a place holder page on Facebook, where patients can give them ratings.

If you create your own page for your practice, you can request that Facebook merges all the other pages into it, so you can monitor incoming comments and reviews from patients.

If you’re feeling adventurous, it’s also worth setting up a Twitter account, which you can connect and post to directly from your Facebook page.

To celebrate the release of the MEDrefer Manager and MEDrefer’s integration with Genie Solutions, MEDrefer is offering Genie users an exclusive 20% discount on yearly membership when they register before April 30th.

The MEDrefer Manager is a small and compact computer desktop application that can be downloaded and installed in seconds and that syncs with your Genie calendar, letting referring GPs know your wait time for an initial consult. You can also update your availability manually if you have spare appointment slots or short term schedule changes.

The MEDrefer Manager allows Practitioners, Practice Managers and authorised Receptionists to easily view referral details, accept a referral and send information back to the referring GP. In the case of larger practices, the Practice Manager can also sign up for a MEDrefer account which will allow them to accept referrals on behalf of all specialists in the practice.

If you’re not at your work computer, you can still access all your referral history, professional profile information and availability settings from our secure website, anywhere that an Internet connection is available.

MEDrefer is also integrated with Best Practice, one of Australia’s leading GP clinical programs, meaning that your Specialist professonal profiles are available to more than 40% of Australia’s GPs (and growing).

MEDrefer gives specialists and authorised management staff the ability to send reports and notify referring doctors of non-attendance with one click, straight to the referring doctor’s clinical inbox. It also allows referrals to be downloaded in standard HL7 medical document format, straight to your electronic patient records.

MEDrefer provides a streamlined referral system which fulfills duty of care requirements and minimises all the most common complications that can arise in the referral process. Our system ensures speedy and easy communication between referring doctors, Specialists and Allied Health practitioners.

MEDrefer is the only referral system that addresses all the referral requirements, from searching for the availability and most suitable specialist right through to the final report, all in one program. This is of particular value to newer specialists establishing their practice, but also helps established specialists in communicating their sub-disciplines and special interests to referring doctors which attracts more appropriate referrals. It also enhances the communication path of the referral process for both new and established practices.

Ready to claim your Genie discount? Contact our support staff  during business hours on support@medrefer.com.au or 1800 556 022.

It’s been an exciting year at MEDrefer as we’ve welcomed many new members and helped make the referral process easier for many GPs and Specialists and Allied Health Professionals.

We’ve had the privilege of working with GP Connections, Best Practice, Genie and several other great Australian medical companies.

Here’s a quick recap of some of the big things we achieved in 2014:

• We integrated with Best Practice, a market leading clinical application, so doctors can easily send a MEDrefer referral via their referral letter tool.
• We introduced Practice Manager accounts, giving Practice Managers the ability to accept referrals and update details for multiple practitioners.
• We introduced the MEDrefer Manager which integrates with Specialist clinical software Genie and allows Specialists and Allied Health to easily update their availability automatically from Genie and handle referrals from their desktop.

We’d like to say a big thank you to all the many people who’ve supported us throughout the year.

We’re hoping that 2015 brings even greater things and we’ll let you in on some of our upcoming developments early next year.

We’ll still be available over the holidays, so if you have any concerns or questions, don’t hesitate to contact us at support@medrefer.com.au or 1800 556 022.

To all our members, partners and associates, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We think MEDrefer is pretty awesome, but if you don’t know much about us, you might not really understand the benefits we can offer to GPs, specialists and patients. Here are the top ten reasons we believe MEDrefer makes a big difference in the Australian referral system.

1. MEDrefer allows doctors to keep their profiles up to date. Specialists and Allied Health Professionals can update their profile and availability at any time, so information is kept up to date. GPs can confirm your specialties, subspecialties and special interests at the point of issuing a referral. This reduces the likelihood of “missed referrals”.
2. MEDrefer allows referring doctors to see wait times and discuss these with patients. They can also see other details such as discipline, location, gender, language and special interest areas. All these factors help patients receive the most timely and suitable care to meet their requirements.
3. MEDrefer allows practitioners to fulfill their duty of care obligations. Specialists can notify GPs of cancelled appointments and no-shows with a single click and can also send reports following successful appointments straight to the GP’s Clinical System inbox.
4. MEDrefer is integrated with leading clinical software. In 2014, MEDrefer integrated into one of Australia’s leading GP clinical software programs, Best Practice. We’re also working on an update to integrate with leading specialist software, Genie.
5. MEDrefer minimises the likelihood of your patient having to return to you for another referral. Our easy to use referral system lets the GP choose anywhere from 1-5 specialists to refer to, with a single referral letter. This way, if the first specialist isn’t available for any reason, the patient can try one of the other recipients the GP recommended to them.
6. MEDrefer provides secure and easy storage options. If the specialist accepts the referral, the formal referral letter can be securely and automatically downloaded direct to their clinical software package, and in PDF format for hardcopy storage.
7. Information is available before accepting the referral. Reception staff are able to access a short summary of the referral before accepting the patient.
8. MEDrefer allows both specialists and practice managers to access referral information. We’re about to introduce our new  practice manager accounts, which means that practice managers have easier access to specialist referrals for their clinic and can accept and organise appointments on a specialist’s behalf.
9. MEDrefer has a great support team. Our support team know the system inside out and are always ready to answer questions and provide information about using MEDrefer to its full potential in your practice.
10. MEDrefer is always adding new features. Our goal is to make the referral process as simple and accessible as possible for the GP, specialist and patient. We rely on your feedback to make sure the service achieves this, so we’re always happy to speak with you to hear your ideas about how me might do things better.

GP Connections is a Queensland not for profit organisation which provides resources and information for general practitioners and their teams.

Founded in 1993, they’ve helped provide training and feedback to practitioners through webinars, seminars and email forums.

In August this year, GP Connections publicly endorsed the MEDrefer program. You can see Ken Murphy, GP Connections Managing Direction, talking about MEDrefer in the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p873tq0xmDs]

MEDrefer on the GP Connections Website

This year has been a very exciting time for MEDrefer. And in that excitement, our blog has not received as much attention as it should. We plan to change that, but first we’ll tell you a little about what we’ve been up to in the interim.

We’ve integrated with leading clinical software Best Practice. This has given us the opportunity to combine the MEDrefer referral process seamlessly into the program that over 40% of Australian GPs use every day.

We’ve seen our database continue to grow, making it one of the leading specialist databases in Australia. We have plans to expand it even further but we can’t share all the details on those plans just yet!

We’re also preparing to release updates aimed specifically at Practice Managers. We’re always looking to improve the MEDrefer program and we’ve seen that Practice Managers play an integral role in the management of referrals. So we’re releasing an update to help them liaise with specialists and accept referrals in a more streamlined and efficient way.

We’ve allowed Practitioners to add all sites they practice from. When we launched, you could only add your primary site, which was frustrating for some of our users.  Specialists and Allied Health Professionals can list a different availability at each site they practice from.

Another update coming soon is an integration with leading specialist software Genie. Specialists will be able to update their availability automatically based on their appointment book and their are lots of other exciting features we’ll be offering as well.

Along with our technical updates, we’ve also expanded our staff and we’re now launching further into the world of social media, so you can contact us directly through your preferred platform if you have any questions or need support. Our staff are available 5 days per week, to help you however you need.

You can be sure that we’ll be posting more blog updates soon, as interesting new things happen in the MEDrefer world.