The Building Blocks for a Referral Network: TPN.Health Endorsement
When you endorse another TPN.Health member, you’re saying, “I have worked with this provider and know that they are providing a quality of care that is worthy of a referral.” The feature allows you to endorse a provider for a specific specialization and write a note if you have more to say about the provider. In a future iteration of the endorsement, you will be able to endorse not only for specializations but for focus issues and modalities as well.
If you endorse another member, it is noted on their clinical profile. For example, Jessica Gibson Kendrick, LPC, has received an endorsement from Dr. Patrick Bordnick, and this is visible to any TPN.Health member who finds Jessica Kendrick’s profile.
The Referral Network
Since TPN.Health launched in August of 2019, we have received invaluable input from our community that is enabling us to build a more efficient platform. We have discovered that behind the referral process are accessible referral networks consisting of living relationships among providers. From a conversation between TPN.Health member Tanya Stuart, LCSW-BACS, LAC, CCS and TPN.Health CEO, Trevor Colhoun, it was clear that there was a need for a more efficient way to build and track those relationships. And, perhaps, TPN.Health could provide the solution.
Over years in practice, Tanya has been tracking her relationships with the providers she trusts in an excel spreadsheet. She keeps the sheet updated with current information on the providers and uses it to make referrals and field calls from other providers. In this way, Tanya has created her own referral process by painstakingly recording her network’s data as it evolves. Likewise, she is the point-person for others who need access to the data. When Tanya approached Trevor with this information, he proposed that TPN.Health could build in a feature that would alleviate the grunt-work and headache of this process.
The solution: referral networks. In a nutshell, referral networks are an aggregate of all the providers you endorse made visible to your network in a list on your TPN.Health clinical profile. How it works: All the providers on Tanya’s analog list individually create their own TPN.Health clinical profiles. Tanya’s only work then is to endorse them for their specializations in TPN.Health. After she endorses them, their profiles appear in a list visible on Tanya’s clinical profile. In this way, the pool serves as a visible representation of the analog relationships that Tanya has worked to build and track for so long. No more fielding calls or hunting for updates on providers’ information.
The launch of the referral network as a TPN.Health feature is especially exciting because it is a key feature in building out not only your personal network in TPN.Health but the network as a whole. A provider, such as Tanya, who already has an expansive analog referral network can bring their network into the digital space of TPN.Health. Simply by utilizing the endorsement feature in TPN.Health, a provider is enabled to track their referral network and make it available to other providers with a click of a button. In a similar way, a provider who perhaps is new to the field and does not have a large analog network, can create the foundation for their referral processes with access to the expansive referral networks of more experienced providers. Trevor Colhoun comments that the endorsement pool’s capacity to build and track connections within TPN.Health is directly serving our mission to bring the trusted providers across the expanse of the field under one accessible umbrella.
The essence of the referral network is that it serves as another layer supporting providers’ navigation of behavioral health field processes through TPN.Health. We’re excited to keep building these layers into the platform! Stay tuned.
Endorsement Pool FAQs:
1. Where is my referral network?
Your referral network is found on your profile under “Sent” Clinician Endorsements.
The endorsement pool can also be found underneath Referral Stats on your Profile Overview tab.
2. Who can see my referral network?
Your referral network lives on your clinical profile, so you will always be able to see it. TPN.Health members with whom you are connected can also see it.
**Note** In a future iteration, members that want access to your referral network will need to be connected to you, and you will have the option to grant them access to view your pool. We know that you have worked to build these relationships and want to give you as much agency as possible in your choices when sharing this information with other providers.
3. Can I search within another providers referral network?
Once you are connected to the provider, you will be able use a filter-search, similar to the standard clinician filter-search, within that provider’s endorsement pool. This feature is coming soon.