4.4 Step By Step Guide to Accepting a Referral

Last updated: July 23, 2026

Once you've finished your consultation call with a family (see A Guide to Alpaca-Sourced Referrals), the next thing to do is make a decision in your EHR. This guide walks you through exactly where to go, what to click, and the one payer-specific exception to watch for.

Run the Call with Guided Consultation

Before you accept, use Guided Consultation to run the consultation itself. Alpaca pulls up the client's details in one place and gives you a link to send the family for gathering their documents, and it shows you which required documents are still missing. That means you can finish the consult and accept without chasing paperwork afterward, which is what keeps a new family starting on time.

Step 1: Find the Referral

Go to your Referrals page (Organization → Referrals in the sidebar, or secure.alpacahealth.io/referrals).

  • Use the Filters bar to view referrals by status. Pending is where a referral sits after the consultation call, waiting on your decision.

  • Use the search bar to find a client by name if your list is long.

Step 2: Review the Referral Details

Before you decide, check what's already on the referral row:

  • Client name and date of birth

  • Referral source and referred-at date

  • Service locations: confirm this matches where you can actually deliver services (home, community, or center)

  • Consultation date and current status

Note: If anything looks off (wrong payer, unclear location, mismatched age range), reach out to the Alpaca Intake Team before you decide. Don't guess.

Step 3: Accept or Deny

Option 1: Accept. If the family feels like a good fit after your consultation call, click Accept on their referral row. You'll be prompted to schedule the assessment right away. Starting the scheduling flow immediately keeps momentum with the family and gets them into care faster.

  • Best practice: schedule the assessment while you're still on the consultation call. It's the single most important thing you can do to start on time with a new family.

  • Note: This works for every payer except TRICARE. TRICARE doesn't allow backdating, so you must wait for Alpaca to upload the TRICARE 97151 authorization before scheduling with TRICARE families. Alpaca will email you once that authorization is uploaded.

Option 2: Deny. If the family isn't the right fit, click Deny. You'll be asked for a detailed reason. This isn't just paperwork: it helps the Alpaca Intake Team match the family with a better-fit provider, and helps them send you better-fit referrals going forward.

Step 4: Handle a No-Show

If the family doesn't answer your consultation call:

  • Text them and try calling again. Families sometimes forget a call was scheduled and won't pick up an unfamiliar number.

  • Still no response? Toggle Unresponsive on their referral row. This prompts the Alpaca Intake Team to reach out and get the consultation rescheduled.

Step 5: After You Accept

The client moves onto your active caseload and the assessment-scheduling flow begins. You can find them anytime from Clients in the sidebar, or from the Referral Patients tab on your Referrals page.

Provider Actions That Trigger Alpaca

A few actions you take on a referral or client do more than update a field: they kick off something on Alpaca's side. Reach for these instead of letting a stuck referral sit.

  • Mark unresponsive (on the referral row). Use this when a family goes silent after the consult is scheduled. It flags the family as unresponsive in Alpaca's intake tracking, so the referral stops reading as "waiting on you," while staying Pending so you can pick it right back up the moment they respond.

  • Change the start date of care. Use this when care will begin later than originally planned. It updates the client's intended start date of sessions (the date must be in the future) and keeps intake tracking in sync, so the client isn't flagged as stalling. If sessions have already begun, use Mark treatment started instead: it sets the start date to today (or a past date) and closes out the related tracking.

  • Mark discharge. Use this only when you are actually ending care with a client, not for a temporary pause. It sets the client's status to Discharged with a reason and explanation, removes them from your active caseload, records the change, and syncs the discharge reason to our systems.

Note: Discharge is a terminal status change, not a quick toggle. If you only need to pause a client or swap the clinician, use the pause or rematch options rather than discharging.