The latest regulations on referral in 2023
County referral, county referral needs to be referred to the local township health center, which helps to contact the superior hospital and issue a referral certificate, and then the patient goes to the superior hospital for treatment. Provincial referral. Referral in the province generally requires referral procedures in the province. The municipal hospital will issue a referral certificate, and then bring the patient's relevant medical records, inspection reports, treatment plans and other materials to the superior hospital for treatment.
Inter-provincial referral, if patients need inter-provincial treatment, they generally need to go through inter-provincial referral procedures. At this time, patients need to find designated hospitals directly across provinces. The hospital can accept patients, then issue relevant referral certificates, and finally the patients will go to the hospital for treatment. Referral generally requires a referral form or a referral book as a medical document to ensure the information transmission between medical institutions and the completeness and accuracy of patients' medical records.
Referral is not only to solve patients' disease problems, but also to improve medical quality and rationally allocate medical resources. Grass-roots medical institutions can usually handle and solve most common diseases and health problems, while specialized medical institutions have higher-level technology and equipment and can provide more complex and professional medical services. By referring patients to suitable specialists or specialized institutions, the burden of grass-roots institutions can be reduced, the overall medical quality can be improved, and medical resources can be used more effectively.
Advantages and disadvantages of referral and improvement measures
As a common behavior between medical and health institutions, referral has brought many benefits, but there are also some challenges and problems. On the one hand, referral may lead to the inconvenience and cost increase faced by patients in the process of seeking medical treatment. Patients may need to go to different medical institutions for diagnosis and treatment, which increases their economic burden and inconvenience in daily life. In addition, patients may have to wait a long time to get a referral, and their condition may deteriorate during the waiting period.
On the other hand, referral may lead to waste and unreasonable distribution of medical resources. In some areas and medical institutions, the demand for referral may be too much or too little, resulting in waste or shortage of resources. When some common diseases are over-referred to specialties, it may lead to excessive consumption of specialized medical resources and affect the medical needs of other patients. On the contrary, when some patients who need specialized treatment are delayed or failed to be referred in time, their condition may deteriorate and the best treatment opportunity may be missed.
In order to solve the problems existing in referral, some improvement measures can be taken. It is very important to establish a perfect referral system and process. Medical and health institutions can establish standardized referral standards and guidelines, clarify the indications and contraindications of referral, and ensure that referral decisions and practices have medical basis and are in line with clinical practice. In addition, medical institutions can optimize the referral process and improve the efficiency and quality of referral by establishing referral evaluation and management mechanisms.