Duncan Guy wrote:
Question - if Doctor A writes in the progress notes - refer to Dr B is that a valid referral?
I presume that you are asking whether it's valid for Medicare benefits purposes. I believe so.
In terms of good practice and quality care, I believe that a referral should set out the problem for which the patient is being referred and the questions which the referring doctor would like answered, the patient's history, examination findings, relevant investigations, etc. How much of that information, especially past history, complete medication list and so on, is in the shared record for the recipients of the inter-specialist referrals to read? Either that information has been provided by the doctor who first referred the patient to your group (who I presume will usually be the patient's GP), and the information has somehow got into your shared electronic record (who enters it and how?), or if the GP was one of those bad GPs, one of the specialists in your group will have had to find that information out from the patient and enter it or get in entered into your shared electronic record. (Or have you ever do you contacted any of those bad GPs and said "Mate, your referral is lacking in some important information. Please send it."?)
-- Oliver Frank, general practitioner 255 North East Road, Hampstead Gardens, South Australia 5086 Phone 08 8261 1355 Fax 08 8266 5149 Mobile 0407 181 683 _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
