Admissions and referrals

Hospital admission referral

As community-based physicians, we are required to exhaust all outpatient options before issuing a referral for inpatient hospital admission.

It is also the rule that hospital admission referrals are issued by the treating physician. If, for example, the orthopaedic specialist has recommended surgery, then the orthopaedist must also issue the referral. If, on the other hand, the indication for inpatient treatment is established in our practice, you will receive the referral from us.

Preoperative work-up before hospital admission

Many hospitals carry out their preoperative work-up themselves. Sometimes the clinic also requests a preoperative work-up (usually labs and ECG) by us. This is only possible if the actual procedure is performed on an outpatient basis. In this case, please bring us the letter from the clinic stating which examinations are requested. Without this documentation, we are unfortunately unable to perform any preoperative work-up. A consultation in the physician’s office hours is also mandatory for this work-up — please book an appointment for that. All other examinations must be performed by the clinic as part of a so-called pre-admission stay.

Follow-up care after surgery

In principle, all surgeons are required to perform follow-up care (dressing changes, suture removal, etc.) themselves. If the surgeon wishes to delegate these tasks to us (this is again only possible for procedures performed on an outpatient basis; otherwise the clinic should arrange a post-admission appointment with you), they must issue a referral that includes the date of surgery and the procedure code. Without this referral, statutory health insurers will not reimburse us for the follow-up care, and we will have to refer you back to the clinic.

For inpatient procedures, the hospital is required to provide aftercare (including suture and staple removal) for up to three weeks after discharge.

Referral to other specialists

As community-based physicians, we must carefully review the indication for a referral to another specialty. If you have a chronic illness that requires regular specialist examinations, the referral can be ordered in advance, with the indication specified (e.g. diabetes mellitus, dialysis-dependent renal failure, …). In all other cases, a prior physician contact in our practice is required.

For preventive examinations (gynaecologist, colonoscopy, etc.) you may consult these specialists without a referral. For physicians who do not perform statutory preventive examinations, a diagnosis requiring further work-up must be on record before a referral can be issued.

We do not issue referrals to anaesthesiologists, as this must be done by the physician who has commissioned the anaesthesiologist.