How to set up knowledge base for pt referral question rou…

Gather everything your team uses to handle patient referrals. That usually means a one‑pager on which insurances you accept, what information the referring provider must send, any required forms (referral intake PDF, patient demographic sheet), and your internal handoff steps. The more structured and complete this content, the more useful the bot will be.

Make sure you have admin access to your Chatref account and know the destination where you want referral requests to land. You’ll need a dedicated email address for incoming referral packets (something like referrals@yourclinic.com) or a webhook URL if your practice uses a CRM or scheduling tool that can accept structured data. Keep your intake coordinator in the loop—they’ll receive the first live referrals during testing.

1. Build the referral knowledge base

Inside Chatref, go to the agent you built for your physical therapy website and add sources that explain your clinic’s referral process. Acceptable formats are PDFs, the text of your referral‑policy page, or a short plain‑text summary you paste directly. The goal is to give the model reliable answers to real patient questions: “Do you take workers’ comp referrals?”, “What info does my doctor need to send?”, “Do I need a script first, or can I self‑refer?”

Add each document as a separate source and give it a clear name (e.g., “Referral intake checklist,” “Insurance accepted for referrals,” “Out‑of‑network referral process”). After uploading, head to the Playground and ask a few sample questions from a patient’s point of view. Tweak the content if the agent misses a critical detail—every answer will be drawn from what you put in, so precision matters.

2. Create the custom action that routes referrals

Switch to the Custom Actions tab for the same agent. Create a new action called “Submit Referral” (or similar). You’ll define a set of fields the patient or referring provider fills in inside the chat:

• Referring provider name and contact
• Patient full name and contact
• Reason for referral (e.g., post‑op knee, chronic back pain)
• Insurance carrier and policy number (if applicable)
• Any uploaded documents (Chatref can collect file attachments in the chat)

Set the destination: type in the email address that your intake coordinator monitors, or enter a webhook URL if you already expose an API endpoint for new referrals. Configure a confirmation message so the person knows the form was received (“Thanks—your referral has been sent to our team, and we’ll follow up by tomorrow.”).

3. Connect the knowledge base to the action

No extra wiring is needed—when a visitor asks a referral‑related question, Chatref’s agent grounds its answer in your uploaded policies and, if the conversation matches the action’s intent, automatically presents the custom action form. To make sure it appears at the right moment, include the word “referral” in the knowledge‑base content itself and in a brief description of the action (e.g., “This action is for patients or providers asking about new referrals”). The model learns the connection from those patterns.

4. Test the full loop

Return to the Playground and play the part of a patient or provider. Ask, “I want to refer a patient for shoulder rehab—what do you need?” The agent should reply with your referral requirements pulled from the knowledge base and then offer the “Submit Referral” action. Fill in the fields, submit, and check that the email arrives or the webhook fires. Run through a few variations: self‑referral, out‑of‑network referral, a provider asking about timeline. Adjust the content or action fields each time until the flow feels natural.

Once the agent and action are live on your site, stage a real‑world test. Ask a staff member or a trusted referral partner to go to your website and simulate a referral request they might send. Monitor the shared inbox inside Chatref—did the custom action fire and deliver the details correctly? Was the auto‑reply accurate? If the intake coordinator received the email, open it and verify that all the fields you defined appear legibly.

Also test after hours. Because Chatref runs 24/7, referrals that come in at night or on weekends should still trigger the action and land in the team’s inbox. If your intake coordinator works east‑coast business hours, set an expectation that the reply includes a realistic turnaround time.

The agent gives wrong referral information. The most likely cause is incomplete or conflicting content. Go back to the knowledge base and add the missing policy—check your forms, confirm the insurance list, and clarify when a prescription is required. The agent only knows what you give it.

The custom action does not appear during a referral conversation. Make sure the action is enabled for the same agent and that you haven’t renamed the agent’s handle after linking it. If the action still doesn’t trigger, try adding explicit triggers in the action settings: you can list keywords like “referral,” “refer a patient,” “new referral,” and “send a patient.” The agent uses them as a hint.

Referral emails never arrive. Verify the destination email address is correct and that your clinic’s email server isn’t blocking the message. For webhook destinations, test with a tool like RequestBin to confirm the payload structure. If you’re sending protected health information, route the data to a secure endpoint that encrypts the payload—Chatref transmits what you configure, but your intake system must handle PHI safeguards.

If you still get stuck, revisit your agent’s overall setup with the Physical Therapy Clinics industry guide, which covers configuration patterns common to physical therapy teams.

What causes pt referral question routing problems for Physical Therapy Clinics?

Gaps in the knowledge base are the biggest culprit—when a policy isn’t in the source material, the agent can’t answer correctly. Misconfigured custom actions also break routing: the action might be attached to the wrong agent, the destination email could be misspelled, or the webhook endpoint might reject unexpected fields. A third, often overlooked, issue is a referral process that changes but isn’t updated in Chatref—the agent keeps pointing patients at old instructions until someone revises the content.

How do I improve pt referral question routing for Physical Therapy Clinics?

Update your knowledge base every time a referral procedure changes—add the new form, revise the insurance list, or clarify the self‑referral policy. Test the flow with a real referral once a month, pretending to be a new patient or provider, and fix anything that feels clunky. Use the conversation insights inside Chatref to see what referral‑related questions patients actually ask; if a pattern emerges that the bot doesn’t handle well, create a dedicated source document for it. Finally, involve your intake coordinator in the review cycle so the captured fields match what they need to process a referral on the first pass.