An ENT referral form that says which records already exist

One specialty, five very different reasons to refer

Otolaryngology covers more ground than almost any other referral destination. A patient sent for recurrent tonsillitis, one sent for sudden hearing loss, one for chronic sinus symptoms, one for hoarseness and one for dizziness all arrive on the same referral pad, and a generic form asking for a reason in one line serves none of them. An otolaryngology referral form worth using prompts for the detail each of those actually needs. This preset does that, is editable throughout, and the PDF is available with no account and no email wall. Most referring practices add their own letterhead before printing a pad.

• Built for HIPAA-compliant workflows

• Free to start — 50 patient actions each month

What an ENT referral form needs to carry

Patient name, date of birth and contact details, plus insurance where your workflow includes it. The referring practice and clinician with phone, email and address, since the ENT office will report back. The referral date. Then the clinical entry, written by the referrer: the area of concern — ear and hearing, nose and sinus, throat and voice, sleep and breathing, or balance and dizziness — with symptoms, how long they have been present, which side, and whether they are getting worse. What has already been tried, including courses of antibiotics, steroids or nasal preparations and how the patient responded, because an ENT office plans very differently for a first presentation than for something that has failed two treatments. Relevant medical history, medications and allergies. Then the supporting-record status, and the referrer's signature and date.

Supporting records: what exists, and where it is

This is the section that saves the phone call. ENT referrals routinely depend on records held elsewhere — an audiogram from an audiologist, a CT of the sinuses from an imaging centre, previous operative notes from another hospital. The form records what exists, roughly when it was done, and how the receiving office can obtain it: attached, sent separately, or available on request from a named source. What it deliberately does not do is describe what any of those records show. Interpreting an audiogram or a scan is the work of the clinicians at either end, and a referral form that offered a reading would be both wrong and unhelpful. Status, not interpretation — that single distinction is what makes the section safe to complete quickly.

Edit it, then download exactly what you built

Rename the form, rewrite any label or instruction, mark fields required or optional, and add, duplicate, reorder or remove sections. Practices referring mostly for paediatric ear problems shape this very differently from those referring mostly adult voice or balance cases, and ENT practices distributing it to their referrers usually pre-fill their own details and trim the areas to what they take. A default PDF is ready as soon as the page loads, and after any change a new PDF is generated from your current version, so what you print is what you designed. It is laid out for US Letter with clean page breaks, prints cleanly in black and white and survives a fax machine.

A family practice and the ENT office it refers to

A three-physician family practice starts from this preset. They make the supporting-record status required, since missing audiograms accounted for most of their delayed appointments. They add a line for duration in weeks rather than a vague recent, after the ENT office pointed out that recent meant anything from days to a year. The ENT practice asks for the failed-treatment field to be expanded, because knowing a patient has already had two courses of antibiotics changes what they book. They agree one version, the practice prints a pad, and the back-and-forth between the two offices largely stops.

What the referring clinician decides, and what the form does not

Every clinical field is entered by the referring clinician and recorded as written. The form does not generate a diagnosis, flag anything as urgent or as a red flag requiring faster review, recommend a test or procedure, interpret an audiogram, scan or any other result, determine medical necessity, or imply that the receiving practice will accept the referral. Triage belongs to the ENT office, which will apply its own criteria on reading it. Receiving practices also differ in what they require before booking — some want an audiogram in hand, some want a specific imaging protocol — so ask the practices you refer to what they expect, and shape the form to match. This is an original document rather than a copy of any association or hospital form; where one is required, use theirs. DocRepute is HIPAA-focused and built for HIPAA-compliant workflows, and as this is a public builder, build the blank form here rather than entering patient details.