An oncology referral form built around the result that already exists

The referral that starts with a result, not a symptom

Most referrals begin with a symptom somebody wants explained. An oncology referral form almost never does. By the time a practice fills one in, something has already been found — a suspicious area on a mammogram, a biopsy back from the lab, a nodule seen on a CT ordered for something else entirely, a count that did not look right on two separate draws. The receiving oncologist is not starting a search. They are trying to get hold of evidence that already exists, held in buildings that are not theirs, before the patient sits down in front of them. That is why a single line marked reason for referral serves this specialty so poorly, and it is exactly what this preset is built around: the finding as the referring clinician documented it, where the proof of it is physically held, and how the receiving office can obtain it. Every label is editable, the layout is yours to change, and the PDF is available with no account and no email wall.

• Built for HIPAA-compliant workflows

• Free to start — 50 patient actions each month

What an oncology referral form needs to carry

Start with the patient block — full name, date of birth, contact numbers, preferred language, and insurance details where your workflow includes them. Then the referring practice and clinician, with a direct phone number, a fax line and an email address, because the oncology office will call back and often needs a records authorization signed the same day. The referral date. Then the clinical entry, written by the referring clinician: the finding and the date it was made, the site or system involved as the referrer states it, current symptoms and how long they have been present, weight change, prior cancer history and any treatment given for it, current medications with particular attention to blood thinners, allergies, and other specialists already involved in the case. Practices distributing this as a medical oncology referral form often add a line for the primary care physician who should be copied on the reply. Then the records block, the patient communication block, and the referring clinician's signature and date.

Where the pathology and the imaging actually live

This is the section that saves a week. A specimen sits with the laboratory that processed it, images sit with the facility that acquired them, and neither travels automatically because a referral was written. So the form records provenance rather than content: which laboratory handled the specimen, the collection date, the accession or report number if the practice has it, and whether the report is going with the referral, following separately, or needs to be requested from the issuing lab. For imaging, the same three facts — which facility, which study, what date — plus whether the images themselves can be released alongside the report, since a report on its own is often not enough for a tumor board to work from. What the form does not do is say what any of it shows. It does not read a pathology report, assign a stage, grade anything, or interpret a scan or a blood count. Status and location, never interpretation: that single discipline is what makes the section quick to complete and safe to hand over.

What the patient has already been told, and by whom

A cancer center referral is sometimes the first phone call a patient receives about a finding nobody has discussed with them yet, and that call lands badly. It is the most avoidable failure in the whole handover, and almost no generic referral template has a field for it. This one does. A short block records whether the patient has been told the reason for the referral, who told them and when, what language that conversation happened in, whether an interpreter should be arranged, and who else the patient has agreed may be spoken to — a spouse, an adult child, a caregiver — with contact details for that person. There is a line for how the patient prefers to be reached and whether a voicemail may be left. None of it is clinical, all of it is knowable at the moment the referral is written, and it changes the tone of the first contact completely.

Rebuild the preset, then print the version you made

A static PDF from a form library gives you one shape and one shape only: you print it, you cross things out in pen, and you live with it. This one you rebuild. Rename the form, rewrite any label or helper text into your own wording, mark fields required or optional, and add, duplicate, reorder or delete whole sections. A breast center receiving referrals from three surgical practices trims the site fields to what it treats and pre-fills its own address and fax; a hematology practice adds repeating rows for previous counts and transfusion history; a surgical office removes the insurance block entirely because its front desk handles that on a separate sheet. A default PDF is ready the moment the page loads, and after any change a fresh PDF is generated from your current version, so the pad you print is the form you designed rather than the one that shipped. It sets on US Letter with real writing space between the lines, prints legibly in black and white, and survives the fax machine that a surprising number of oncology intake desks still run on.

A general surgery practice and the cancer center it refers into

A four-surgeon general surgery practice sends patients on after colonoscopy and breast core biopsies come back. Their old referral said little more than biopsy positive, please see, and the cancer center's intake coordinator was making two calls back on almost every one: the first to establish which laboratory was holding the specimen, the second to find out whether the patient had been told anything yet. The surgeons started from this preset and made three fields required — laboratory name, report date, and whether the tissue can be released to the receiving pathologist on request. They added a plain yes or no on whether the patient has been informed, with a line for who spoke to them. The cancer center asked for one more addition: a named person at the surgical office who can authorize a records request without a second signature. One agreed version, one printed pad, and the coordinator's two calls became one.

What the referring clinician owns, and what this form does not decide

Every clinical field on the page is entered by the referring clinician and recorded exactly as written. Front desk staff can complete demographics, insurance and the referring practice block, but the finding, the history, the records detail and the signature belong to the clinician making the referral. The form generates no diagnosis, assigns no stage, interprets no pathology report, scan or laboratory result, and recommends no treatment. It also does not mark a referral urgent, rate how quickly a patient should be seen, or influence the order in which the receiving office works through its list — that judgment belongs to the oncology team applying its own criteria, and the form makes no promise that a referral will be accepted. Many cancer centers and hospital systems publish their own referral form or portal, and where they do, use theirs; this preset is an original document rather than a copy of any published, institutional or association form. DocRepute is HIPAA-focused and built for HIPAA-compliant workflows, so how you transmit the finished referral and any records that follow it remains a decision for your practice.

Where a printed pad stops and digital intake begins

A referral pad moves information between two offices. It does nothing about the second problem, which is everything the receiving practice still needs from the patient before that first long appointment. That is where DocRepute picks up: the same builder that produced this form produces the patient-facing intake the oncology office sends out ahead of the visit, answered at home rather than on a clipboard in a waiting room, and landing as structured information staff can read before the patient arrives. DocRepute is in early access ahead of launch, with a BAA planned at launch. Getting started costs nothing — 50 action credits a month, and a credit is only used when a patient completes a regular intake submission or a standard survey. Building, editing and publishing forms uses none. AI intake and conversational surveys sit on the paid plans; the free tier has no AI, and it is genuinely usable without one.