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Specialty Referral Completion Among Primary Care Patients: Results From the ASPN Referral Study

¹ Department of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Pennsyl-vania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pa
² Department of Nursing, Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Studies, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
³ Center for Research Strategies and the Department of Family Medicine, University of Colorado, Denver, Colo
⁴ Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Md

CORRESPONDING AUTHOR: Christopher B. Forrest, MD, PhD, Abramson Research Center 1335, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 3400 Civic Center Blvd, Philadelphia, PA 19104, forrestc{at}email.chop.edu

PURPOSE This study describes referral completion from the perspectives of patients and primary care physicians and identifies predictors of adherence to the referral recommendation.

METHODS We observed a cohort of 776 referred patients from the offices of 133 physicians in 81 practices and 30 states. Referring physicians and patients completed self-administered questionnaires at the time of the referral decision and 3 months later.

RESULTS Physicians reported that 79.2% of patients referred had a specialist visit, and 83.0% of patients indicated they completed the referral. The most common reasons for not completing the referral were "lack of time" and patient belief that the "health problem had resolved." The statistic for patient-physician agreement on referral completion was 0.34, indicating only fair concordance. Patients in Medicaid plans were less likely than others to complete the referral, and more likely to experience a health plan denial. A longer duration of the patient relationship with the primary care physician and physician/staff scheduling of the specialty appointment were both positive predictors of referral completion.

CONCLUSIONS About 8 in 10 patients referred from primary care complete a specialty referral within 3 months. Findings from this study suggest that referral completion rates may be increased by assisting patients with scheduling their specialty appointments and promoting continuity of care.

Key Words: Referral and consultation • appointment adherence • patient acceptance of health care • primary health care • practice-based research • delivery of health care • continuity of patient care

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