A specialist practice should give referring offices a page that answers their working questions: which concerns each clinician sees and which belong elsewhere, how to send a referral and what to include, how urgent referrals are handled, how soon the practice contacts the patient, and what the referring clinician receives afterward. The page should offer information only, with nothing that reads as an inducement to refer. Physicians approve the scope statements; the referral coordinator supplies the logistics.
Our primary and specialty care overview notes that referring offices ask how to send a referral, what records to attach, and what happens after it arrives. This page goes further into how that page is structured, what each section needs, and the federal rules underneath it.
This is a content question for practice owners and marketing leads, not legal or clinical guidance. Bring the privacy and referral-relationship questions below to your privacy officer and counsel.
Referring clinicians read differently from patients
A referring physician or nurse practitioner reads a specialist's site in the middle of a clinic day, looking for three things: is this the right specialist, how do I send the patient, and how fast will they be seen. They do not need the patient-facing explanation of the condition, and they will not read past a paragraph about the practice's philosophy. A patient page is not a referral page. Folding one into the other leaves both audiences hunting.
Give referring offices their own page, linked from the footer and from each physician's bio, and write it in the register clinicians use with each other. Clinical vocabulary is fine here, as long as every scope statement comes from the physicians who will receive the referral.
Scope: what each clinician sees, and what belongs elsewhere
The most useful section is often the shortest: a line or two per clinician on the concerns they focus on, and a plain list of what the practice does not see. If your practice redirects referrals, that missing second list is the first place to look. If a hand surgery group does not treat a particular nerve condition, or a cardiology group refers certain rhythm problems to an electrophysiologist, saying so saves a wasted referral, a frustrated patient, and two phone calls.
Find the gaps by looking at what went wrong recently. A useful question for the referral coordinator: "Which referrals did we redirect last quarter, and what would have told the referring office sooner?" Each answer becomes a line in the scope section, approved by the physician. Where physicians want certain workup completed before the first visit, list it, in their words, so the referring office can do it once instead of the specialist ordering it again. Our guide to provider bio pages covers how each physician's own page should describe their focus.
Sending records: what the page should say
Referring offices want to know what to send and how. HIPAA's treatment provisions are the backdrop: 45 CFR 164.506(c)(2) says "A covered entity may disclose protected health information for treatment activities of a health care provider," and the minimum necessary standard in 45 CFR 164.502(b) does not apply to "Disclosures to or requests by a health care provider for treatment." How those provisions apply to your referral workflow is for your privacy officer to confirm.
The page itself should be practical: the channels the practice accepts (electronic referral, secure direct messaging, fax), the documents that help the physicians triage (recent notes, relevant imaging reports, lab results, medication list), and what to do if records will follow later. A checklist the referring office can print or bookmark does more than a paragraph. If the practice uses a referral form, link the current version and say who updates it, since an outdated form sent back and forth costs both offices a day.
Timing, urgency, and what comes back
Referring clinicians need to set expectations with their patients. Say how soon the practice usually contacts a referred patient, how urgent referrals are flagged and handled, and who to call when a referral cannot wait. The timing should be the practice's real typical figure with a date, updated when it changes, not a goal.
Then say what the referring clinician receives: a consult note, and roughly when; how the practice communicates if it declines or redirects a referral; and how ongoing care is shared if the specialist follows the patient long term. Patients benefit too, since their access questions belong on the new patient access page that the referral page can link to.
Information, not inducements
A referral page is marketing to people who send patients, which puts it near federal fraud and abuse laws. The HHS Office of Inspector General describes the Anti-Kickback Statute as "a criminal law that prohibits the knowing and willful payment of 'remuneration'" to induce or reward patient referrals, and says remuneration includes "anything of value." It describes the Physician Self-Referral Law as one that "prohibits physicians from referring patients to receive 'designated health services'" payable by Medicare or Medicaid when the physician or an immediate family member has a financial relationship with the entity, unless an exception applies. Counsel can explain how either law bears on your practice.
The content habit that follows is simple: the page explains how referrals work and offers nothing else. Any offer to referring offices beyond information, such as meals, events, gifts, or free services, goes to counsel before it appears anywhere. Here is a hypothetical brief for a fictional two-surgeon hand and upper extremity practice in South Carolina:
| Section | Content | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| Who we see | Each surgeon's focus in two lines; conditions referred elsewhere | Each surgeon |
| Before referring | Imaging and notes the surgeons want first | Surgeons, through the referral coordinator |
| How to send | Accepted channels and the referral line | Referral coordinator |
| Timing | Typical contact time, urgent pathway, dated | Referral coordinator |
| What comes back | Consult note timing and redirect process | Practice administrator |
Every cell is a fact the practice already holds. The writer should not have to invent the urgent pathway or the surgeons' imaging preferences; those come from the people who run them, and the brief simply makes them public in one place.
In Hudson South's process, the Authority Asset gathers the practice's approved knowledge and evidence, such as the scope lists and referral logistics above. Hudson Twenty-One records how the practice communicates across 21 dimensions so the page sounds like its physicians, Market Intelligence researches the questions referring offices and patients ask and the market around the practice, and AEO Creation turns those inputs into answer-first content. Our overview of content for medical, dental and wellness practices covers the patient side.
See what referring offices find when they look
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- 45 CFR 164.506: Uses and disclosures to carry out treatment, payment, or health care operations. Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. Read 2026-10-16.
- 45 CFR 164.502: Uses and disclosures of protected health information: General rules. Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. Read 2026-10-16.
- Fraud & Abuse Laws. HHS Office of Inspector General. Read 2026-10-16.