Sending and receiving Clinician Referrals

Clinician Referrals helps you connect clients who aren’t a good fit for your practice with other SimplePractice clinicians. By searching the Therapy Finder Directory, you can find clinicians based on specialty, location, insurance, and availability, and send referrals directly from your SimplePractice account.

In this guide, we'll cover:

• Initiating the referral process
• Searching for clinician(s) to refer
• Sending referrals
• Receiving referrals from other clinicians
• FAQs

Initiating the referral process

If a client’s preferences don’t align with your availability or specialty, you can use Clinician Referrals to recommend other clinicians. You can send referrals from your Clients list, a client’s profile, and the Inquiries or Requests pages in your SimplePractice account.

To send a referral from your Clients list:

1. Select Clients from the left navigation menu
2. Next to the client you’d like to refer, click the three horizontal dots
3. Select Send Referrals

To send a referral from a client's profile, click Send Referrals in the top right corner.

Note: An email with consent is required to send referrals. To learn how to add an email for a client, see Editing a client's information. You can send referrals to all clients regardless of their status.

To send a referral from the Inquiries or Requests pages:

1. Navigate to Inquiries or Requests from the left navigation menu
2. Click the three horizontal dots next to the client you’d like to refer
3. Select Send Referrals

Note: For more information on managing contact form inquiries or appointment requests in SimplePractice, see Managing prospective clients on the Inquiries page and Enabling online appointment requests.

You’ll also have the option to attach clinician referrals when you decline an appointment request from a prospective client. To do this, select Search for clinicians at the bottom of the Decline appointment page.

Note: When you refer a client, your name will be associated with the client in the receiving clinician’s account. To learn more, see Is my name shown to the clinician when I include them in my referral?

Searching for clinician(s) to refer

After clicking Send Referrals, you'll see a list of SimplePractice clinicians in your area who are listed on the Therapy Finder Directory. You can filter the clinician search results to match the client with a clinician who may better meet the client's needs.

You can filter the results by Location, Specialty, Approaches, Availability, Insurance, Appt types, Telehealth, or More filters.

Note: By default, the search results will display clinicians based on your location. For more information about how therapist profiles are displayed in the directory, see Building a rich Therapy Finder profile.

To review a clinician’s Therapy Finder profile, click View Profile. This opens their Therapy Finder profile in a new tab, where you can learn more about their background, specialty, and more.

You can also add frequently referred clinicians to your list of Favorites by clicking the heart icon.

Note: When browsing clinicians, you may see a Favorite of your favorites badge. This indicates that someone you’ve favorited has also favorited that clinician.

To access your favorites list, select the Favorites tab at the top of the referral screen.

From the Favorites tab, you can select any of the following icons:

• Plus icon: Adds the clinician’s profile to the referral email
• Eye icon: View the clinician’s profile
• Heart icon: Remove the clinician from your Favorites

Important: Clinicians listed in the Therapy Finder Directory are independent providers who use SimplePractice for their practice management. They’re not endorsed or employed by SimplePractice, and SimplePractice isn’t responsible for their conduct.

Sending referrals

Before sharing your referral, you can customize the email message and attach clinician profiles to your response. To do this:

1. Write a message for your client under Email message
2. Click Add profile to email to attach a clinician referral
3. Repeat as needed to attach additional clinicians
   • If you want to remove a profile you added, click the - icon next to their name under Added profiles
4. Select Preview message
5. Click Send referrals

When you send referrals to a client, they’ll receive an email containing your provider recommendations. This email includes a link to view each clinician's Therapy Finder profile, where the client can choose to send a message or request an appointment.

The client will also get a confirmation email that their booking request was received.

Sending a referral doesn’t notify the referred clinician, and client information isn't shared with referred clinicians. While this feature can facilitate referrals, the client is responsible for establishing contact and sharing necessary information. Once the client reaches out, the referred clinician will be able to see who referred them.

Note: SimplePractice and its features have been certified through HITRUST by a third-party assessor that verifies the strictest level of HIPAA compliance.

Receiving referrals from other clinicians

To appear in Clinician Referrals search results, you must have an active Therapy Finder profile. You can check the status of your profile by navigating to Marketing > Profile.

An Active profile will also be visible to therapy seekers in the Therapy Finder Directory.

Note: To help other clinicians feel more confident referring clients to you, make sure your Therapy Finder profile is complete and up to date. For tips on optimizing your profile, see Building a rich Therapy Finder profile. To learn how to edit or preview your profile information, see Customizing your profile for the Directory and Professional Website.

When a client is referred to you through Clinician Referrals, the referral source will be listed as "via clinician referrals" under the date you received their inquiry or appointment request.

FAQs

• Can I turn Clinician Referrals off in my account?
• Can I refer clinicians who aren't on Therapy Finder?
• What insurance payers and specialties appear in clinician search results?
• Is my name shown to the clinician when I include them in my referral?

Can I turn Clinician Referrals off in my account?

The Clinician Referrals feature is available in paid SimplePractice accounts with a Therapy Finder-eligible clinician. There's no way to disable or hide the Send Referrals option at this time. To learn more about clinician eligibility for Therapy Finder, see Benefits and eligibility for listing on Therapy Finder.

In group practices with a Therapy Finder-eligible clinician, Account Owners, practice managers, schedulers, and clinicians can send referrals. For more information, see Clinician roles available for team members and Administrative roles available for team members.

Can I refer clinicians who aren't on Therapy Finder?

You can use the Clinician Referrals feature to refer clients externally to providers not listed on the Therapy Finder Directory. To do this, enter the contact details for an unlisted provider in the Email message field.

You can then send the message without attaching clinician profiles.

What insurance payers and specialties appear in clinician search results?

Clinicians can indicate the insurance payers they accept on their Therapy Finder profiles. To update your insurance payers, navigate to Marketing > Profile and select Edit next to Insurance Accepted.

Therapy Finder supports the following specialties: Behavioral health therapy, Counseling, Marriage and family therapy, Psychology, Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing, Psychiatry, Social work, and Substance use counseling.

To update your specialty, navigate to Settings > Profile > Clinical info.

Is my name shown to the clinician when I include them in my referral?

When you send a referral, that clinician will see your name attached to it. This helps build trust in the referral process and makes it clear who connected the client to them.

Your name will appear in these locations:

• A tooltip that appears when hovering over the i icon next to via clinician referrals on the Inquiries and Requests pages

• The flyout details when viewing a referral request or inquiry

• The Activity section in the flyout