Reimagining Referral Intake for the Post-Acute Care Continuum

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More Complexity = More Administrative Burden

The process of referral intake paperwork is the backbone of post-acute admissions, integrating patient histories, insurance details, medication lists, clinical notes, and care plans into a central record. Yet, the sheer volume and complexity of required documentation, extended across formats and platforms, means that frontline administrative staff operate under constant time and accuracy pressure. Missing, delayed, or incomplete paperwork often results in stalled admissions, redundant work, and, sometimes, compromised patient safety.

Every detail matters for continuity of care, regulatory compliance, and reimbursement. Intake specialists, nurses, social workers, and administrative teams all touch these documents, reviewing everything from clinical histories and discharge instructions to billing forms and coverage validations. These records must be meticulously assembled, transferred securely and processed with urgency.

The Door is Open for Errors

Despite best intentions, paperwork transfer remains predominantly manual, fragmented, and error-prone. The average post-acute provider handles hundreds of referrals monthly, each requiring hours of verification and cross-checking. Information is often duplicated across paper forms, PDFs, EMRs, or disparate portals. Inconsistencies, missing fields, and illegible entries regularly result in back-and-forth communications between acute and post-acute teams, delaying care and straining both resources and morale.

The Pressure to Get it Right

Regulatory scrutiny is rising, especially as payers and CMS demand strict documentation for continued stays and reimbursement. Value-based care models and interoperability rules push organizations to modernize referral intake practices. However, many facilities still rely on processes designed decades ago—the fax machine, print-and-sign sheets, and manual abstraction—while the volume and complexity of patient data explodes.

When referral paperwork falls short—whether incomplete, delayed, or unreadable—patients may be denied timely access to care or placed in inappropriate settings. Critical clinical data might be missed, including allergies, infection risk factors, or recent interventions, resulting in adverse events or rehospitalizations. Gaps in insurance information can cause reimbursement denials, and every omitted detail is an invitation for regulatory non-compliance and financial penalty.

The burden on staff is enormous: administrative teams routinely spend more than half their workday compiling, chasing, and validating referral paperwork. Nurses and clinical leaders are forced to double-check what should be a seamless handoff, and patients wait longer for decisions, beds, and treatments. The financial loss from delays, rejected claims, or poor transitions runs into the billions annually, with risk cascading upward to leadership and payers.

The Future for Referral Intake Paperwork

Healthcare leaders must reimagine how referral intake paperwork is managed before the consequences become untenable. The answer is not simply “do more with less,” but to take a bold step toward process automation, clarity, and speed to improve and maintain high-quality patient outcomes. And referral intake can't operate in a silo. It must be embedded in a real, connected ecosystem fueled by consistent engagement and seamless communication flow across the post-acute care continuum. Engagement is the breakthrough that transforms care coordination. 

The Olio Solution

Olio for Skilled Nursing is the industry-leading care coordination solution, driving fast, sustained engagement across the entire post-acute continuum. By connecting payers, SNFs, hospitals, home health, and other providers on one platform, Olio enables real-time collaboration, closes communication gaps, and delivers smarter, more transparent care transitions.

The result: better data, quicker decisions, fewer delays, improved compliance, and lower costs throughout the referral and admission process.

Organizations using Olio report fewer delays, improved regulatory compliance, and meaningful reductions in operational expenses. As each provider becomes an active participant in the network, efficiency improves and the risk of adverse events drops.​

Specifically for referral intake paperwork, Olio’s platform utilizes a HIPAA and HITRUST-compliant AI summarization feature that transforms complex referral paperwork into clear, actionable summaries in seconds—giving clinical teams immediate clarity, reducing manual effort, and accelerating safe admissions.

Ultimately, Olio’s care coordination platform ensures teams are focused on what matters—working together to deliver better results for individuals and patient populations alike. When referral management is streamlined, coordinated, and powered by real engagement, everyone in the care journey benefits.

Learn more about Olio for Skilled Nursing and see how Olio is changing the way care is coordinated.