INFO: Letters and Referrals

CLINICAL EMR (Elation)

The Letters and Referrals feature allows users to securely share participant health information with external specialists and other healthcare professionals. Depending on the recipient’s contact details, information can be sent via email or fax, ensuring timely and secure communication across care settings.

Sending Letters & Referrals

Users can send a letter or referral directly from the EMR via fax (if the recipient has a secure fax number) or email. This functionality supports efficient communication and ensures that participant health information is shared securely with external providers, specialists, or care partners.

Finding Recipients/Contacts

Contacts with a next to their name have registered for an Elation Provider Portal account to access Elation's secure online portal. They can log in to the Provider Portal with a password to view records you share with them via Elation. This means you can share as many pages of records with the contact as needed and you will not be limited by fax constraints.

Helpful articles from Elation:

Letters & Referrals Guide- Sending messages to patients & corresponding with third party professionals

How my colleagues can access shared patient information from my faxes and emails 

Contacts with an *E next to their name have their own Elation Account. This means you can share as many pages of records with the contact as needed and your Letter/Referral and all of its attachments will be sent directly to the contact's EHR.

• If the Contact has an Elation logo  in their profile then they will only receive information in their Elation account, regardless if other contact information is available.
• For all other contacts, the chart below shows how information will be delivered, based on the information in their contact details:

Contact has...	Fax	Direct Message	Connect (Provider Portal)
Fax number only	X		X (Fax notification)
Email only			X (Email notification)
Direct message address only		X
Fax number AND email	X		X (Fax & email notification)
Fax number AND Direct message address	X	X (*If recipient has an active Provider Portal account then the message will only be delivered via Provider Portal.)	X (Fax notification)
Email AND Direct message address		X (*If recipient has an active Provider Portal account then the message will only be delivered via Provider Portal.)	X (Email notification)
Fax number, email AND Direct message address	X	X (*If recipient has an active Provider Portal account then the message will only be delivered via Provider Portal.)	X (Fax & email notification)
(NO CONTACT) Fax number only	X

Provider Portal & Interactive Chart

When a Letter/Referral is sent from Elation that includes attached documents from the participant's chart, they are always made available to your recipient in a secure, HIPAA-compliant provider portal in the form of an interactive chart if they are a contact in the provider directory. This online interactive chart will be populated with the attachments to your letter or referral — a much more clinically effective way of displaying and communicating participant information than fax. 

NOTE: The interactive chart format is only available on Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome web browsers.

Following up on Sent Letters/Referrals

Fax Failure: If the fax transmission fails, a notification will be sent to your Urgent inbox and will also be located at the top of the participant’s chart. Click on the Re-Fax option under the Actions dropdown menu.

Delivery Confirmation: For contacts in your Provider Directory, by making your letter or referral and its attachments available to your recipient online, Elation gives you the added benefit of knowing if and when your documents were retrieved via one of Elation's secure platforms.

When your letter or referral is accessed online, you will see a confirmation appear on the letter or referral in your patient's chart, noting when it was opened by the recipient.

Notifications: For contacts in your Provider Directory, when you write the letter or referral you can specify for how much time your letter or referral can go unopened before you are notified. You will be notified when your letter or referral has not been accessed online for a certain period of time.

Actions that you can take on your unopened letter or referral:

• "Resend" - Allows you to resend your original letter or referral to your recipient. If re-sending to a fax number, you will have the option to fax copies of the attachments as well.
• "Acknowledge & Sign off" - Files the notification in the chart, documenting the date and time it was acknowledged. This information is also recorded in the original letter or referral under the section "Delivery Details."
• "Write message" - Opens a message to your staff, linking the unopened referral or letter.
• "Notify me again later" - Allows you to "snooze" the unread notification; you can specify an additional number of days after which Elation will notify you again if the letter or referral still has not been opened.