What this means for your practice
Use a manageable set of source categories, with an honest unknown option and a correction process. Do not require staff to guess information the enquirer has not supplied.
An example to discuss with your team
Enter fictional referrals using abbreviations, missing sources and renamed organisations. Check whether the report groups them consistently without inventing certainty.
What to discuss with your agency
Ask the agency to test abbreviations, missing sources and an organisation that changed its name. The report should group confirmed equivalents without inventing certainty. Agree who corrects the list over time. The purpose is understanding referral relationships, not making every row look complete.
Put the brief into practice
Agree a manageable list of source categories that reception can use during an ordinary enquiry. The list should reflect the information people actually provide, with an unknown or unconfirmed option where certainty is absent. Avoid asking staff to infer a source from a name or a guess about how someone found the service. Keep a controlled way to record professional organisations and their known name variants so abbreviations do not fragment reports. Ask the agency to demonstrate a renamed organisation, an abbreviation and a missing answer.
The resulting report should be explainable from the recorded information. Give corrections an owner and preserve meaningful history when classifications change. Review the proportion of confirmed usable sources alongside unknowns, but do not create pressure to eliminate unknowns through invention. The purpose is to understand referral relationships well enough to plan appropriate work, with clear limitations, rather than produce a complete-looking chart at the expense of accuracy.
How to check the result
Track the proportion of enquiries with a confirmed usable referral-source category.
Turn reading into a next step
Your action checklist
Work through these checks with your team or supplier. Tick the ones you have resolved and leave unknowns open.
Record what you know, what is still missing and the answer you need from your team or supplier.
Use project decisions only, without personal, patient or confidential details. Entries stay in this page and are not submitted to Kay & Co. Copy or download before leaving; this page does not save your notes.
Further reading
These sources provide background for the topic. The practice examples and checklist are illustrative planning suggestions from Kay & Co.
Related guides
Need help with this?
Tell us what is getting in the way. Kay & Co. can help you understand the options and turn the next step into something that works for your practice.
Explore marketing & search services or discuss your project.
Try the free Healthcare Digital Planner to find your starting priority.