Tips for the front desk

Who this page is for: reception and practice staff who work the referral list every day. Each tip takes seconds and saves a follow-up later.

1. Start with the oldest

The Inbox always lists referrals oldest arrivals first. Filters change what is visible, never that order. Work from the top. The referrer’s quoted words, including any timeframe they wrote, are shown as their words; clinical decisions stay with the practice’s clinicians.

2. Find a caller in seconds

When a patient phones, press the magnifier, or / on a keyboard, and type what they say: a surname, “Surname, First”, a date of birth as DD/MM/YYYY, or the phone number they are calling from. Each result shows the date of birth and status. Choose the right person yourself; Refera never picks one for you.

Made-up example. Searching by surname on a phone and opening the referral.

3. Check before you copy

Each referral shows the extracted details beside the letter’s own words. Compare them before you mark a referral ready or copy it into the practice system. Use Copy all, or the copy button beside one field, rather than retyping. If something is wrong, correct it; the correction is recorded in the referral’s history.

4. Edit drafts freely

Nothing leaves the practice without a named person approving it. Edit a draft before you approve it. If you press Esc, close the referral or move to another one with unsaved changes, Refera asks whether to Keep editing or Discard changes. A page reload or closing the tab loses an unsaved draft, so finish or approve it first.

5. Call from the referral

Use the Call link beside a phone number. It opens your phone’s dialler or the computer’s calling app. Calling records nothing, so after the call record what actually happened.

6. Record only what happened

Record a contact attempt after it happens, not before. Book the appointment in the practice’s own system first, then record it in Refera with the system and time. Approving a draft is not proof of contact or a booking.

7. Take it, or hand it back

In Today, choose Take before you start on unclaimed work, so two people do not call the same patient. Before you finish a shift, give unfinished work to a colleague or Return it to the team, with a note of what the next person needs to do.

8. A quiet list is not proof

If new referrals seem slow, check the inbox status in Connections. If it says Inbox check delayed, keep using the practice’s usual inbox process until it recovers.

9. Keep your sign-in yours

Use your own account, never a shared one. Keep your passkey, authenticator and recovery codes to yourself. If you lose a passkey, a recovery code lets you add a replacement; see Signing in.

10. Learn the shortcuts

On a keyboard: j and k move through the list, Enter opens a referral, a opens its main action, x closes it and ? shows the full list.

Never put patient or referral details in a support chat, the contact form or ordinary email to Refera.

Related

• Work through referrals
• Patient booking worklist
• How practices use Refera

Administrative process-state only - Refera performs no clinical triage.