A referral arrives. It leaves as a booked first visit, tracked the whole way.
Pretty Good AI brings fax referrals, provider forms and patient self-referrals into one athenaOne intake and review workflow. It matches the patient, follows up on missing information and reaches accepted patients to book. Staff keep acceptance and clinical decisions, while stalled referrals stay visible instead of disappearing between handoffs.
Written for: Practice managers, referral coordinators, patient-access and revenue-cycle leaders at athenaOne specialty practices that depend on referrals for new patients.
The problem
Referrals arrive on every channel and stall in the gaps between them. A fax sits in a queue until someone types it in. A referring office is missing a page. A patient never calls back. The practice cannot see which referrals are stuck or why, and each one that leaks is a first visit and the downstream care that never happens.
What starts it
An inbound referral fax, a submission on the provider referral form hosted on your website, a patient self-referral from your website or a campaign landing page, or a referral taken on a call.
What the AI does, step by step
Capture the referral
Fax referrals, including handwritten ones, are read and drafted with a confidence score. Web referrals from providers and patients arrive already structured. Extraction prepares the information for the intake and review workflow; it is not clinical acceptance of the referral. Low-confidence reads wait for staff review.
Match, de-duplicate and chase what is missing
The referral is matched to an existing athenaOne patient or set up as a new one under the approved workflow, and duplicates are caught. When information is missing, the AI follows up with the referring office or the patient rather than leaving the referral parked.
Hold for staff review where you want it
Referrals wait in a hold and review queue for the checks your practice requires, such as clinical appropriateness or payer rules. Staff see the drafted chart and the source document together and release or reject the referral.
Reach the patient and book the first visit
Once accepted, the AI calls the patient to schedule, or hands a self-referring patient to the web scheduler. The first visit is booked in athenaOne against your provider and visit-type rules. Booking is a milestone in the referral workflow, not proof that the patient attended.
What changes in athenaOne
- Patient chart drafted or matched in athenaOne from the referral, with the source fax or form attached.
- Referral record created and kept current as it moves through intake, review, outreach and scheduling.
- First-visit appointment placed on the athenaOne schedule for the matched provider and appointment type.
- Every referral from every channel visible in one queue, with status, waiting time and the reason it is stalled.
Completion milestones
Booking is the scheduling milestone: the referral has been accepted and the first appointment is on the athenaOne schedule. The referral workflow tracks toward the completed first visit; booking alone is not attendance. Before launch, agree the athenaOne attendance signal, missed-visit follow-up and staff owner for unresolved cases. Missing information and unsuccessful outreach remain visible for follow-up.
What your practice controls
- Which referral channels are turned on: fax, provider web form, patient self-referral and campaign landing pages.
- The fields a referral must include before it leaves intake, and who is contacted when they are missing.
- Which referrals go to staff review and the checks applied there.
- Outreach cadence to patients and referring offices, and the visit types and providers referrals may book into.
- Which campaign links exist, so you can see which outreach efforts produced scheduled patients.
Where a person steps in
- Low-confidence fax reads are held for staff review rather than charted automatically.
- Referrals that need a clinical or payer decision wait in the review queue for your team. Clinical decisions stay with the care team.
- Patients who cannot be reached after the agreed outreach attempts are surfaced as stalled for staff follow-up.
- Referring offices that do not return missing information are escalated to your referral coordinator with the history attached.
Illustrative walkthrough
A referral fax arrives with missing information
The fax is read into a draft and matched to the patient where possible. Missing insurance information triggers the agreed follow-up rather than an assumption about coverage. Staff review the completed referral and release it for outreach. The patient is reached and the first visit is booked under the practice rules. That establishes the booked milestone, not a completed visit; attendance remains a separate outcome to confirm.
Synthetic example, not a customer result or a live product test.
How it gets implemented
Agree the first workflow
We confirm which channel opens first, usually inbound fax or patient self-referral, the review checks your team needs, and how success will be measured before launch. Define booked and completed-visit outcomes separately, including the attendance signal and follow-up ownership.
Build to your athenaOne configuration
Production access to 730+ athenaOne APIs, with workflows built around your practice's rules. Referral fields, provider and visit-type rules, and the review queue are set to the way your practice already works.
Review and go live
Your referral team reviews the intake, matching, missing-information and staff handoff paths before launch. Typical time from kickoff to the first workflow live is 3 to 6 weeks. We agree on the first workflow, how success will be measured, and the pricing for continued use before launch. There are no setup fees. Your first 30 days live are free. The clock starts when your first agreed workflow goes live in your practice, whether that is voice, web scheduling, referrals or another workflow. When the free 30 days end, service continues automatically, month to month, at the pricing in your order form. New workflows are priced when activated.
Evidence and its limits
Commonwealth also runs our referral management on athenaOne: inbound fax referrals, a provider referral portal, and automated patient self-referral that books the first visit. This establishes use of the referral workflow, not a measured intake-to-booked or intake-to-attended conversion improvement.
See the customer evidence →Emerald launched referral and intake automation together with web scheduling on its existing athenaOne configuration. The announcement describes the deployment; results are early and qualitative. Workflow-specific measurements will follow practice review.
Read the launch announcement →Deployment evidence is not a measured conversion improvement. Read any outcome figure with its stated workflow, period and denominator. Customer-reported results. Your numbers will vary by workflow, staffing, seasonality and call mix.
Questions buyers ask
Does the AI decide whether to accept a referral?
No. It captures, matches, de-duplicates and chases missing information, then holds the referral for whatever review your practice requires. Acceptance and any clinical judgment stay with your team.
What happens to referrals we already have in athenaOne?
Referrals are matched to existing athenaOne patients and records, so the workflow runs inside the record your practice already keeps rather than a separate referral system.
How does patient self-referral connect to scheduling?
A self-referral captures the demographics and clinical detail needed to open a chart, routes through the same review workflow as a provider referral, and once accepted hands the patient to the web scheduler to book the first visit.
Is a booked referral the same as a completed first visit?
No. A booking is a scheduling milestone. A completed first visit needs a separate attendance outcome. During workflow review, agree which athenaOne signal confirms that outcome and who owns missed-visit follow-up. Do not count a booked appointment as an attended visit.
How is it priced?
We agree on the first workflow, how success will be measured, and the pricing for continued use before launch. There are no setup fees. Your first 30 days live are free. The clock starts when your first agreed workflow goes live in your practice, whether that is voice, web scheduling, referrals or another workflow. When the free 30 days end, service continues automatically, month to month, at the pricing in your order form. New workflows are priced when activated.
Map your referral workflow.
Book a working session to walk through intake, review and scheduling using a synthetic example. Do not send patient information through public website or booking forms.
Book a working session →Opens our scheduling calendar. Choosing a time books the session.