A referral email with six conditions in the small print
A rehabilitation case manager, working on a personal injury claim, refers a client for physiotherapy. The email asks you to contact the client quickly, complete an initial assessment report by a set date, keep to an approved number of sessions, send a progress report at the midpoint, and not exceed the approved sessions without written agreement. Invoices must quote a case reference and go to a specific address.
You have several of these at any time, from different companies, each with slightly different terms. The terms live in the original email. The physio has seen the referral but not the small print. Reception booked the sessions but did not know about the report deadline. The case manager chases the report, and the relationship suffers.
Why case terms get lost
Case-managed work sits alongside ordinary insured and self-pay patients, so it is booked and treated in the same way. But it has obligations attached that ordinary patients do not: deadlines for first contact and reports, specific report formats, session approvals, invoicing rules.
Each case management company also has its own habits. One wants reports on its own form, another accepts a letter, a third wants updates through a portal. One approves sessions in blocks, another one at a time. The physio treating the client is rarely the person who read the referral in detail, so those habits are learned the hard way, through returned reports and queried invoices.
Those obligations arrive as text in an email or an attached letter. Nothing in the clinic system turns them into dates and tasks. The physio writes reports between patients when reminded. Session counts are checked, if at all, when invoicing.
What missed terms cost
| Missed term | What follows |
|---|---|
| Late first contact | Case manager chases, confidence drops |
| Initial report overdue | Treatment approval delayed |
| Sessions over the approval | Invoice disputed or unpaid |
| Progress report not sent | Case manager escalates |
| Invoice without references | Payment held up |
Case management companies work with many clinics, and they notice which ones are easy to deal with. Referral volume follows reliability.
How we track each case's terms
- When a referral arrives, its terms are captured in a short case record: case manager, company, reference, first contact deadline, report deadlines, sessions approved and invoicing rules. Emailed referrals are read and pre-filled for a person to check.
- Deadlines become tasks with owners: reception for first contact, the physio for each report.
- Report templates for each company's required format are ready for the physio to complete in their own words, with the case details already filled in.
- Attended sessions are counted against the approval, with an alert before the last approved session.
- Invoices are drafted with the right case reference and address for each company.
- A case list shows every active case, next deadline and status, so the clinic lead can see what is due this week.
Report content and treatment decisions are the physio's alone. The system only makes the deadlines and formats hard to miss.
For the physio and the clinic lead
Physios see which reports are due and when, and start from a filled template. Reception know which clients have a first contact deadline. Invoices go out correctly first time. Case managers receive what they asked for, on time, and the clinic becomes one they are happy to send work to.
The clinic lead also gains an honest view of this line of work: how many cases each company sends, how long reports take to write, and how quickly each company pays. That makes it easier to decide which relationships to grow and whether the reporting load is priced properly.
Recognise this?
- Case managers chase you for reports
- Referral terms are only in the original email
- Sessions have exceeded the approved number
- Invoices are returned for missing references
- Nobody has a list of active cases and their deadlines