For providers · Clinical resource
What Happens After You Refer: The Communication Loop
Clinically reviewed by Josephine W. Hazeley, PMHNP-BC on · Last updated
When you refer a patient to Mindful Counseling & Wellness, you hear back. With the patient’s consent, the referring provider gets confirmation the referral arrived, confirmation the patient was reached and scheduled, and a summary after the initial psychiatric evaluation — delivered by phone or secure email on a predictable schedule rather than silence.
Why do most psychiatric referrals go quiet?
A common complaint therapists raise about psychiatric referrals is that they hand off a patient and then never hear anything. You don’t learn whether the patient scheduled, whether they were seen, or what the plan is. You find out at the next therapy session, secondhand, or not at all.
HIPAA usually gets the blame, but the HIPAA Privacy Rule is not the obstacle. Its definition of “treatment” already includes the referral of a patient from one provider to another and consultation between providers about a shared patient (HHS guidance on treatment disclosures). A provider may disclose protected health information to another provider for that provider’s treatment of the patient without a separate authorization (45 CFR 164.506(c)(2)). Mental health information is treated the same as other health information for these treatment purposes, with narrow exceptions (HHS mental-health sharing guidance). The silence is a workflow gap, not a legal requirement.
What does MCW send back, and when?
The loop follows the referral through four points, and the referring provider hears at each one:
- Referral received. After you refer by call or email, you get an acknowledgment that it arrived and who has it.
- Patient reached. You get confirmation that the patient was contacted and scheduled — or that outreach attempts have not yet connected, so the patient doesn’t fall into a gap between the two practices.
- Post-evaluation note. After the initial psychiatric evaluation with the PMHNP-BC, you get a summary: the assessment, the working plan, and the medication approach in general terms.
- Meaningful changes. You hear again when the plan changes substantively or if the patient disengages from care, with a standing line back to the practice for your own questions.
The intent is that a referring therapist always knows where their patient sits in the process without having to chase it.
How does patient consent gate the loop?
HIPAA permits provider-to-provider treatment communication without a separate authorization, but MCW’s practice is to confirm the patient agrees to the loop and to document that consent. The patient decides who hears what. If a patient declines to have information shared back with the referring provider, that is respected, and the referring provider is told only that consent to share was not given.
Consent-based communication also keeps each update to what the referring clinician needs for continuity of care rather than the full record. The patient stays in control of the flow of their own information.
Is any part of the referral transactional?
No. A referral to MCW is a clinical communication, not a financial one. The referral mechanism is a call or an email, and nothing changes hands in either direction — no payment, no per-referral arrangement, no fee for sending or receiving a patient. The relationship between the referring practice and MCW is limited to coordinating the patient’s care.
How do I refer, and what do you need from me?
Reach the practice by call or email. It helps to include the patient’s contact information (with their consent to be contacted), the reason for referral, any urgency, and how you would like to receive updates back — phone or secure email.
Two things you should not send: no clinical records — the intake evaluation gathers history from the patient directly, so nothing needs to be copied, faxed, or summarized on your end — and no patient health details in voicemails or plain email. Contact details, with the patient’s consent to be contacted, are the whole referral. From there, scheduling and insurance are handled directly with the patient; nothing routes back through your office, and your staff never becomes the go-between.
If you are weighing whether a patient’s presentation warrants a medication evaluation in the first place, the guide on when to refer for a medication evaluation walks through the thresholds. If timing is your question, new patients are typically seen within 1–3 business days; current intake windows are posted on the provider availability page. For perinatal screening handoffs specifically, the EPDS referral pathway covers what to send along with a positive screen.
Who is the patient seeing?
Referrals are evaluated and managed by Josephine W. Hazeley, MSN, PMHNP-BC, a board-certified psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner with a perinatal specialty, practicing by telehealth across North Carolina. She is a nurse practitioner, not a physician. Care covers psychiatric evaluation, medication management, and supportive therapy.
To start a referral or confirm the current intake window, call or email the practice — the provider referral hub lists both, along with the fastest way to reach the practice directly.