Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) have partnered with ReferWell to solve their most urgent challenges related to care delivery. ReferWell helps FQHCs drive more efficient care transitions for underserved populations while identifying new revenue to support the invaluable care that health centers offer their communities.
Challenges Solved for FQHCs
Expand Access to Specialists
ReferWell improves access to care for patients in need of specialty care. We curate a complete list of specialists who will accept Medicaid referrals so health center physicians can direct care transitions to the appropriate option, personalized to each patient's needs.
Coordinate Care With Providers Outside the FQHC
We give your FQHC visibility and data sharing capabilities outside your walls. Send clinical data to the external specialists, track that patients completed their scheduled referral appointments and receive consult notes back twice as often as the national average.
Get Patients to Referral Appointments More Often
With ReferWell, you schedule referral appointments at the point-of-care and the system handles all automated reminders for you. We're helping health centers increase patient follow-through for recommended care to 73% for Medicaid patients, more than doubling the current visit rate.
“Before ReferWell, it would take us 30 minutes to find the right specialist and schedule our patients. Now, we are able to find the right specialist for our patient, see availability and schedule appointments while patients are in the office.”
– Patient Referral Supervisor, large urban health center
Expand access to care with better referral workflows.
See how a New York City-based health center:
- Tripled patient access to specialists
- Achieved 69% patient follow through with referral appointments
- More than doubled consult notes returned, to 88%
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Explore Solutions for FQHCs
Referral Management
Improve access to specialty care, schedule appointments and increase follow through and close the loop.
About Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs)
FQHCs are community-based clinics that serve patients with limited or restricted access to health care. Typically, FQHCs serve underinsured and uninsured individuals, low-income individuals, seasonal and migrant workers, immigrants and homeless people.
The FQHC is designed to provide comprehensive primary care by involving the local community that they serve. There are currently 1,300 FQHCs across the United States that serve more than 22 million patients per year.
FQHCs are required to take all patients, including Medicare and Medicaid, and offer discounted or free services for the uninsured, depending on their income level.
FQHCs are supported through a combination of Medicaid and Medicare payments (42%), grant revenues (35%), plus state and federal funds. The Affordable Care Act in 2010 allocated $11 billion over five years to support the ongoing efforts of FQHCs.
As a result of their patient base, FQHCs have led the conversation on the importance of addressing social determinants of health.
Challenges Faced by FQHCs
The primary care provider (PCP) at the FQHC serves as the patient’s care quarterback and is sensitive to the need to coordinate the patient’s access to care. However, that coordination is difficult because today, only one out of every three FQHC patients who are referred to a specialist will successfully complete an appointment. This is because the burden of finding and scheduling the appointment is left to a patient, who is often lacking in resources, compounded by the fact that a lot of providers prefer to avoid these types of patients.
All of these missed specialist visits result in patients getting sicker and often seeking care in the emergency room, creating poorer health outcomes and unnecessary health care spend.
Another challenge is that the PCP doesn’t know which patients went to the specialist. Plus, when a patient does show up, the PCP only finds out the result of the visit around 35% of the time.
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