Takes the referral against the discharge date, checks honestly whether the agency can staff it, and answers the planner while they are still on their list.
Hospital discharge planners and case managers place referrals under time pressure that has nothing to do with the agency's convenience. A patient is being discharged Friday; care has to be in place Friday. The planner has a list of agencies and is working down it, and what they need is a yes or a no, quickly. An agency that does not answer is skipped. An agency that says yes and then cannot staff it is worse than one that said no, because the planner finds out on Thursday evening when there is nowhere left to go, and that agency does not get called again. These relationships are the most valuable referral source in home care — a single planner can place several clients a month, indefinitely, at no acquisition cost — and they are won and lost almost entirely on responsiveness and reliability. Agencies lose them without ever being told. This agent takes the referral immediately, in whatever channel it arrives, captures what the referral actually requires, checks against the agency's real staffing position for that area and those hours, and gives the planner a clear answer. Where the answer is yes it books the assessment against the discharge date. Where the honest answer is that the agency cannot staff it, it says so quickly, which is what protects the relationship for next time. Built on Agentplace: the agent runs on its own page, so a visitor finishes the whole request in the conversation.
It answers the planner quickly and honestly.
Takes referrals arriving by phone, email, fax or referral portal and reads them into one consistent record.
Captures what the referral requires: discharge date, address, hours and days needed, level of care and payer.
Checks against the agency's real staffing position for that area and those shifts before answering.
Gives the planner a clear answer quickly, including a clear no where the agency cannot staff it.
Books the assessment against the discharge date where the answer is yes, with the margin the agency requires.
Records every referral by source with its outcome, so planner relationships become measurable rather than felt.
The instinct when a referral arrives is to take it and work out the staffing later, and it is the wrong instinct in this channel specifically. A planner who is told on Tuesday that an agency cannot cover a Friday discharge has been given something useful — they move down the list with time to spare — and will call again. A planner who is told yes and discovers on Thursday evening that no caregiver exists has had a patient's discharge put at risk, and that is the kind of thing that ends a referral relationship permanently and quietly. Checking the real staffing position before answering is therefore not caution, it is what preserves the channel. Speed is the other half and it is unforgiving. Planners place referrals between other work, and the agency that responds within the hour is talking to somebody who has not yet called anybody else. An agency responding the next morning is being told the referral has been placed. Since these referrals cost nothing to acquire and recur indefinitely, response time in this channel has a higher return than almost any advertising an agency could buy. The measurement is what most agencies lack entirely: which planners and which facilities actually send referrals that become clients, how many were declined and why, and how quickly each was answered. That turns relationship-building from an instinct into something that can be directed.
From a referral to a clear answer.
By phone, email, fax or portal. The agent reads it into one consistent record and captures the discharge date, hours, level of care and payer.
Against the agency's real position for that area and those shifts, before any commitment is made to the planner.
Yes with an assessment booked against the discharge date, or a clear and quick no. Either way the referral is logged with its source and response time.
A no on Tuesday that produced three referrals in the following month.
Scenario: a home care agency receiving around twelve discharge referrals a month was accepting nearly all of them and had twice failed to staff one, losing a hospital relationship it never got back. A case manager emails at 2:10 on a Tuesday about a Friday discharge: a patient in an outlying town needing two hours every morning including weekends, private pay. The agent captures the referral, checks the agency's real position for that area and those shifts, and finds no caregiver with weekend availability within the travel radius. Rather than accepting and hoping, it replies at 2:26 saying plainly that the agency cannot cover weekend mornings in that area this week, that it does not want to commit to a discharge it cannot staff, and that it would be glad to be considered for anything in the neighboring towns where it has capacity. The case manager places that patient elsewhere with three days to spare, and — because she was given a straight answer quickly rather than a maybe — sends three referrals over the following month, two of which the agency can staff and takes. Under the previous arrangement the referral would have been accepted on Tuesday, the staffing problem discovered on Thursday, and the relationship quietly ended.
Anyone whose best referrals come from the same few people.
Discharge relationships are the highest-value referral channel and are won on responsiveness.
Referrals from every channel land in one place and get answered inside the hour.
Nothing is accepted that cannot be staffed, so you are not solving an impossible roster on a Thursday.
You find out which planners and facilities actually convert.
Assessments are booked against the discharge date with real margin rather than the day before.
The mechanism that loses them is a yes that could not be delivered.
It reads referrals from wherever they arrive.
Receives the referral, the prospective client record and the booked assessment.
Serves the same role for agencies running AxisCare.
Receives referrals from planners and case managers and carries the reply.
Stores discharge summaries and referral documentation.
Books the assessment against the discharge date.
Reaches planners who prefer text and confirms with the family.
Alerts intake and scheduling to a referral needing a staffing decision.
Tracks referrals by source, response time and outcome.
Where responsiveness wins the channel.
What agency owners ask before turning this on.
It is an automated assistant that reads referrals from phone, email, fax and portals into one record, captures the discharge date and staffing requirements, checks the agency's real position before answering, and gives the planner a clear yes with a booked assessment or a clear no, quickly.
It will say no where the agency genuinely cannot staff a referral, which is the answer that protects the relationship. A yes that fails on Thursday costs the channel permanently.
The agency's own rules define what it can commit to. Anything ambiguous routes to a person rather than being decided.
No. It captures what the referral states about level of care and passes it on. The assessment happens in the home, by a nurse.
Yes, and it normalizes them into the same record as portal and email referrals, so an agency watching three channels does not effectively watch one.
Within minutes of the referral arriving. Planners place with whoever responds while they are still working the list.
Source, response time and outcome - which is how relationship-building stops being instinct and starts being directed at the facilities that actually convert.
It runs on Agentplace. Agentplace is an AI agent platform where the agent gets its own page, talks to your visitors there, and carries the request through to the end instead of handing it to a form. You can open this template and change any step before you publish it.
Takes the referral against the discharge date, checks honestly whether the agency can staff it, and answers the planner while they are still on their list. Open it in Agentplace and change any step before you publish.