Referral Lifecycle
A referral journey can contain several legs, each representing a handoff between organizations. The journey has an overall status; each leg tracks its own progress. Check which one you are viewing before interpreting a status.
Queue labels and referral statuses
Needs Review and Assigned to Me are queue views, not leg statuses. For example, the Home queue’s Needs Review tab includes incoming Pending and Viewed legs. Assignment records responsibility separately from clinical progress.
Leg statuses
| Status | What it indicates |
|---|---|
| Pending | A referral has arrived and is awaiting action. |
| Viewed | The referral has been viewed. |
| In Review | The receiving team is reviewing it. |
| Info Requested | Additional information has been requested. |
| Accepted | The receiving team has accepted the referral. |
| Scheduled | The referral has moved to scheduling status. This is separate from completion. |
| In Treatment | Treatment is underway. |
| Completed | The leg has a recorded disposition and outcome summary. Some views label this Completed & Discharged. |
| Declined | The receiving team declined the referral, with a reason. |
| Cancelled | The referral was cancelled, with a reason. |
| Forwarded | This leg was forwarded onward; follow the next leg for continued work. |
| Distributed | A group inbox referral was distributed to a member practice; follow the receiving leg. |
Completed, Declined, Cancelled, Forwarded, and Distributed are terminal for that leg. A terminal leg does not necessarily mean the entire journey has finished.
The specialized Bridge & Book workflow also has a Held state for a home-clinic re-evaluation slot. It is not a general-purpose On Hold action. Closed is not a current leg status, and archiving is separate from status.
Available actions
Open a leg’s detail page and use its Status & Actions buttons. The receiving organization sees applicable actions such as Accept, Decline, Schedule, Complete, and Cancel, depending on the current status and whether the leg has already been forwarded. There is no general Change Status dropdown on this page.
Completion is available from In Treatment and requires a disposition and an outcome summary of at least 20 characters. Scheduling alone does not complete a referral. Declining and cancelling require their respective reasons.
The leg history records status transitions. Some shortcuts, such as accepting a Pending referral, also record intermediate Viewed and In Review steps.
Overall journey status
Journey statuses are Open, Completed, and Cancelled. The status transition service completes an Open journey when all its non-archived legs are terminal and at least one has a Completed outcome. A Forwarded or Distributed leg can therefore remain part of an Open journey while another organization continues the work.
Use the journey view to follow the handoffs and the individual leg to understand its progress and available actions.
Watch: Referral Lifecycle
Read transcript: Referral Lifecycle
The referral list is the starting point for following a journey, while individual handoffs have their own progress and status.
Search for Riley and read the existing result, including the current status and receiving practice.
Open the journey to see the referral context and its handoff history, instead of interpreting a list label in isolation.
Follow-up tasks stay connected to the referral, but completing a task does not by itself complete the referral journey.
Return to Referrals to continue tracking the work, remembering that a completed handoff and a completed overall journey are different outcomes.
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