After the referral, what happened?

A referral is an invitation to the next part of care. Someone still has to reach the service, work out whether it fits, and decide what to do if it doesn't.

For the team making that introduction, a small question can open up a much more useful conversation: what happened after we passed the details along?

What we found in the news

The May 2023 findings from the CMS Accountable Health Communities evaluation (opens in a new tab) examined efforts to connect Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries with community resources. These addressed health-related social needs, including food, housing, and transport.

One finding is worth pausing over:

“Navigation alone did not increase beneficiaries’ connection to community services or HRSN resolution”

— Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Findings at a Glance, May 2023. HRSN means health-related social need.

The summary identifies barriers including transport, eligibility rules, waiting lists, and unavailable resources. It also reports fewer emergency department visits in the model's Assistance Track. Those findings can sit together: help navigating services may affect care use without resolving the underlying need. This was an evaluation of a particular model, not a test of genus or every approach to referral.

Why this matters to us

We take this as a reason to be more curious about what a referral means in someone's week.

An introduction to a meal service may be welcome. The practical question is whether the person can use it. Can they get there? Do the opening hours fit? Is the support what they wanted in the first place?

Our view is that teams need room to record an honest answer. A referral that hasn't worked yet is useful information. It can change the next conversation and help colleagues avoid sending someone back through the same unhelpful route.

That takes a little humility. A well-intended suggestion can still miss something important.

Agree on the next contact

Before making a referral, consider agreeing with the person how much help they want. Some people will prefer to make the first call themselves. Others may welcome an introduction or someone alongside them.

Then make the follow-up specific enough to be useful. Which team member will check back, by what means, and roughly when? Does the person know whom to contact if the plan changes?

A shared reminder might help a busy team keep that agreement. The conversation still needs a person who can listen and decide, within their role, what happens next. A colleague covering an absence should be able to see the outstanding question without making the person start again.

Leave room for an honest answer

For a team reviewing its own process, it may help to distinguish an introduction from an appointment, and an appointment from support that actually met the need. These are different moments.

Useful questions could include:

• Did you manage to speak with someone?
• Was the service able to help with what you wanted?
• Is there anything making the next step difficult?
• Would you like us to stay involved?

These are suggestions for a conversation, not a requirement to keep pursuing someone. A person may choose to pause or decline a service. Agreeing what contact they want respects that choice.

Record only the relevant information needed for the work, in the appropriate place and with the right permissions.

When the answer is that nothing is available

Sometimes a careful follow-up will establish that a service has no capacity. Teams need a way to recognize that limit without making the person responsible for solving it.

We would like organizations to use these patterns when talking with community partners: which needs repeatedly go unanswered, where an alternative exists, and where there is a real gap. That discussion can begin with the pattern itself, without circulating a person's story.

A clear account of what remains unresolved gives the next team something honest to work with.

Where genus fits today

This is the kind of everyday coordination that informs our work at genus. Today, an organization can bring resources, communication, and agreed coordination workflows into its configured genusConnect experience. The useful starting point is the local process: who makes an introduction, who checks back, and where an outstanding task belongs.

Connections between organizations depend on the agreed setup, permissions, and integrations. A shared workspace cannot create a vacant place in a service. Its contribution should be to help people see the next action and keep relevant context available to those doing the work.

Explore how the genus ecosystem connects people and services.

One question to take away

When your team records a referral as complete, what does that tell you about the person's experience—and what might you still need to ask?