The check-in admin checklist

Who this page is for: the practice manager asking “what does check-in actually check?” - here is the full list, the exact words a flag uses, and the lines the feature will never cross.

Planned, not available

The connected Refera workspace does not currently include a check-in route or screen. This page records a tested product design only; no practice can enable it today.

This checklist describes the internal validation design. When a patient arrives, the front desk runs the same administrative sweep every time: is the referral still valid, is the billing paperwork in order, is the record current. Refera’s check-in review does that sweep in one screen, so the desk chases fewer things by hand and a lapsed or incomplete record never turns into a rejected rebate and a surprise bill.

Every check is a presence fact: a record exists, is signed, is inside its window - or it is not. Nothing reads clinical content.

Check-in with fictional example details and no patient information: pick the arriving patient, the checklist confirms or soft-flags each administrative fact, and check-in lands in the arrival-ordered ledger.

What check-in verifies

Six checks, each rendered as a card that is either Confirmed or Flag:

Check	Administrative fact verified
Referral validity window	The referral’s written date is inside its Medicare window - 12 months for GP referrals, 3 months for specialist-to-specialist, indefinite honoured. Plan-based referrals (MHTP, CDM) are checked on their date frame only, with a prompt to confirm sessions remaining against the practice record - never a session-count claim.
Medicare number	A Medicare number is on file. Presence only - the number is not validated here.
Referrer provider number	The referrer’s provider number is on file - needed for the rebate claim.
Financial consent	The financial consent is signed: yes, no, or not recorded.
Patient form	The patient registration form is complete: yes, no, or not recorded.
Contact details current	Address and phone have been confirmed current with the patient.

“Not recorded” is an honest third answer. Where the practice record says nothing about consent, the form or the contact details, the card flags as unconfirmed - it is never silently treated as confirmed.

The exact flag wording

Flag wording is fixed in the engine and shown verbatim on the card - it always names the administrative gap and the staff action, never a judgement about the patient:

• Financial consent, not signed: “Financial consent not signed - offer the consent form at the desk before the consult.”
• Financial consent, not recorded: “Financial consent status not recorded - confirm with the patient and record it.”
• Patient form, incomplete: “Patient registration form incomplete - hand the patient the form to finish at the desk.”
• Patient form, not recorded: “Patient form status not recorded - confirm at the desk.”
• Contact details, changed: “Address or phone has changed - update the record at the desk.”
• Contact details, not confirmed: “Address and phone not yet confirmed - check with the patient at the desk.”
• Medicare number, missing: “Medicare number missing - ask the patient for the card at the desk.”
• Provider number, missing: “Referrer provider number missing - chase with the referring practice.”
• Validity window, lapsed: “Referral is N months old, past the 12-month window - check renewal (a lapsed referral may not attract the Medicare rebate).”
• Validity window, no legible written date: “Referral written date not found - verify the referral is current before the consult.”

Practices choose their checklist

Every practice runs check-in differently, so the checklist is configurable per practice: a simple on/off switch for each of the six checks. A check that is turned off shows no card and raises no flag - it does not linger as a silent “unknown”. The defaults run all six.

What it never does

• It never blocks the patient. Every flag is soft. A patient with five flags checks in exactly like a patient with none - the flags become staff follow-up items, nothing more.
• It never makes a clinical judgement. No check reads the clinical content of a referral. Validity windows are billing rules; consent, forms and contact details are practice records. There is no urgency, severity or risk anywhere in the result.
• It never re-orders the queue. The check-in ledger is strict arrival order - the sequence patients checked in. It is not a priority, an urgency rank or a clinical judgement, and flags do not move anyone in it.
• It never guesses. A fact the record does not state comes back “not recorded” and is flagged for a human to confirm - never inferred.

The wording above and every state of every check - including checks turned off - is pinned by the test suite (tests/validity.test.mjs, tests/checkin-page.test.mjs), so a change to any of it fails the merge gate.

Refera tracks referral admin only. It does not triage patients.