Method and system for distributing patient referrals

• US 20020133386A1
• Filed: 01/09/2001
• Published: 09/19/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 01/09/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Align Technology Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Align Technology Incorporated
• Inventors: Chishti, Muhammad, Vargha, Kenneth, Breeland, Joe
• Granted Patent: US 7,580,846 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/8
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1095 Meeting or appointment
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0258 Registration
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0282 Rating or review of business operators or products
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/20 for the management or administration of healthcare resources or facilities, e.g. managing hospital staff or surgery rooms
• CPC Class Codes: G16Z 99/00 Subject matter not provided for in other main groups of this subclass
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

Practitioners are certified to perform a medical procedure, such as an orthodontic procedure. Certified practitioners are maintained in a referral directory and classified within tiers based on criteria such as the number of procedures that they have performed. Inquiries are solicited from prospective patients, and referral lists are provided to those patients who request them. The referral lists are obtained from the referral directory with doctors from higher tiers who have performed more procedures receiving preferential inclusion on the referral lists.

Claims

1. A method for referring patients to practitioners said method comprising:

certifying a group of practitioners to perform a medical procedure;

identifying individual patients who wish to receive the procedure; and

providing to the identified individual patients a list of certified practitioners, wherein those practitioners who have performed more procedures than others of the practitioners are placed preferentially on the list.

2. A method as in claim 1, wherein certifying the practitioners comprises training practitioners.

3. A method as in claim 1 or 2, wherein certifying the practitioners comprises testing the practitioners.

4. A method as in claim 1 or 2, wherein certifying comprises requiring that the practitioners have performed at least one procedure.

5. A method as in claim 1, further comprising removing practitioners from the certified group.

6. A method as in claim 1, wherein the practitioners are placed into tiers based on the number of procedures performed and wherein practitioners from higher tiers are preferentially placed on lists.

7. A method as in claim 6, wherein the individual practitioners are randomly ordered within a tier.

8. A method as in claim 6 or 7, wherein each tier is defined by a threshold number of procedures performed over a selected period of time.

9. A method as in claims 6 or 7, wherein each tier is defined by the aggregate number of procedures performed.

10. A method as in claim 6, wherein the practitioners are assigned to at least three tiers.

11. A method as in claim 10, wherein the practitioners are assigned to an initial tier when they become certified, to an intermediate tier when they treat a first threshold number of patients over a preselected time period, and to a higher tier when they treat a second threshold number of patients over the preselected time period.

12. A method as in claim 1, wherein identifying individual patients comprises collecting names and contact information from individual patients.

13. A method as in claim 12, wherein at least some of the individual patients contact the coordinator in response to solicitations.

15. A method as in claim 14, wherein the performance criteria include the number of dental procedures performed over a preselected time period.

16. A method as in claim 14 or 15, wherein the performance criteria include data relating to successful patient outcomes.

17. A method as in claim 14, wherein informing comprises soliciting patients.

18. A method as in claim 17, wherein soliciting comprises advertising in print and/or electronic media.

19. A method as in claim 14, wherein certifying the dental practitioners comprises training the dental practitioners.

20. A method as in claim 14 or 19, wherein certifying the dental practitioners comprises testing the dental practitioners.

21. A method as in claim 14 or 19, wherein certifying comprises requiring that the dental practitioners have performed at least one procedure.

22. A method as in claim 14, further comprising removing dental practitioners from the certified group.

23. A method as in claim 15, wherein the dental practitioners are placed into tiers based on the number of procedures performed and wherein the tiers are arranged in order on the list.

24. A method as in claim 23, wherein the individual dental practitioners are randomly ordered within a tier.

25. A method as in claim 23, wherein the dental practitioners are assigned to at least three tiers.

26. A method as in claim 23 to 25, wherein each tier is defined by a threshold number of procedures performed over a selected period of time.

27. A method as in claim 23 to 25, wherein each tier is defined by an aggregate number of procedures performed.

28. A method as in claim 25, wherein the dental practitioners are assigned to an initial tier when they become certified, to an intermediate tier when they treat a first threshold number of patients over a preselected time period, and to a higher tier when they treat a second threshold number of patients over the preselected time period.

29. A method as in claim 14, wherein identifying individual patients comprises collecting names and contact information from individual patients who contact a coordinator.

30. A method as in claim 29, wherein at least some of the individual patients contact a referral center who produces the referral list in response to solicitations from the coordinator.

14. A method for referring patients to dental practitioners, said method comprising:

certifying dental practitioners to perform a dental procedure;

informing a potential patient population of the availability of the procedure;

identifying individual patients who wish to receive the procedure;

providing to the identified individual patients referral lists of certified practitioners wherein individual practitioners are preferentially placed on the referral lists based on one or more performance criteria.

31. A method for referring patients to practitioners to perform a procedure said method comprising:

maintaining a referral directory which includes contact information for practitioners, wherein the practitioners are certified to perform the procedure and are prioritized in a plurality of tiers depending on the number of procedures that they have performed;

soliciting and receiving inquiries from prospective patients regarding the procedure; and

referring to individual patients at their requests practitioners within the patient'"'"'s geographic area, wherein practitioners are selected from the referral directory in a manner which preferentially presents practitioners from tiers which require a higher number of procedures relative to practitioners from tiers which require a lower threshold number of procedures.

32. A method as in claim 31, wherein maintaining the referral directory comprises:

certifying practitioners to perform the procedure; and

tracking the number of times each certified practitioner performs the procedure to produce a performance number for each practitioner;

periodically updating the referral directory to reflect updated performance numbers.

33. A method as in claim 32, wherein the performance number comprises the aggregate number of procedures performed by an individual practitioner.

34. A method as in claim 32, wherein the performance number comprises the number of procedures performed by an individual practitioner over a predetermined time interval.

35. A method as in claim 31, wherein the plurality of tiers is at least three.

36. A method as in claim 31, wherein soliciting comprises advertising and providing contact information that permits a patient to contact a referral center.

37. A method as in claim 36, wherein the referral is a person.

38. A method as in claim 36, wherein the coordinator is an automated response system.

39. A method as in claim 31, wherein referring comprises:

determining the location of the patient'"'"'s geographic area; and

generating from the referral directors a referral list of practitioners within the patient'"'"'s geographic area, wherein the list includes a number of practitioners selected and/or arranged so that practitioners from higher tiers are preferentially referred.

40. A method as in claim 39, wherein the higher tiered practitioners are placed on lists in any geographic area more often than lower tiered practitioners.

41. A method as in claim 39, wherein the higher tiered practitioners are placed earlier on a single list than the lower tiered practitioners.

42. A method as in claim 31 wherein referring comprises:

determining the location of the patient'"'"'s geographic area; and

selecting a single practitioner to be referred to the patient, wherein practitioners from higher tiers are selected more often than those from lower tiers.

43. A method as in claims 39 or 42, wherein all practitioners are included on at least some referral lists.

44. A method as in claim 31, wherein the referral directory comprises an electronic database, wherein soliciting comprises receiving voice or data inquiries from potential patients at a central location, and wherein referring comprises generating a referral list from the electronic database and responding to the inquiry by providing the referral list to the patient.

45. A method as in claim 44, wherein generating the referral list comprises presenting an ordered list of practitioners on a display screen and responding comprises reading at least some of the names of the practitioners to the potential patients.

47. A method as in claim 46, wherein certifying the practitioners comprises training practitioners.

48. A method as in claim 46 or 47, wherein certifying the practitioners comprises testing the practitioners.

49. A method as in claim 46 or 47, wherein certifying comprises requiring that the practitioners have performed at least one procedure.

50. A method as in claim 46, further comprising removing practitioners from the certified group.

51. A method as in claim 46, wherein tracking comprises determining the number of times a practitioner acquires a kit to perform the procedure on a patient.

52. A method as in claim 46, further comprising dividing the directory based on geographic location.

53. A method as in claim 52, wherein the list is divided into at least two tiers with practitioners who have performed more than a first threshold number of procedures being in a higher tier.

54. A method as in claim 53, wherein the list is divided into at least three tiers with practitioners who have performed more than a first threshold number of procedures being in a higher tier, those who have performed more than a second threshold number but less than the first being in a lower tier, and those who have performed less than the second threshold number being in a still lower tier.

55. A method as in any of claims 47, and 50 to 54, wherein the number of times the procedure is performed is measured periodically over a fixed time interval and the directory periodically updated.

56. A method as in any of claims 47, and 50 to 54, wherein the practitioners are not ordered within a tier.

57. A method as in any of claims 47, and 50 to 54, wherein the practitioners are further ranked within each tier based on the number of procedures performed.

58. A method as in claim 46, wherein the directory is maintained in an electronic database.

59. A method as in claim 58, further comprising generating a referral list for an individual patient from the patient referral directory, wherein the listed is generated automatically from the electronic database based on the patient'"'"'s geographic location and wherein practitioners with a higher priority have an increased likelihood of appearing on any referral list.

46. A method for maintaining a referral directory, said method comprising:

certifying practitioners to perform a medical procedure;

tracking the number of times each certified practitioner performs the procedure; and

maintaining a patient referral directory, wherein the practitioners are prioritized on the list based on the number of times each has performed the procedure.

60. A computer system for generating a list of medical practitioners for referring to potential patients, said system comprising:

means for maintaining a referral directory which includes contact information for practitioners who are certified to perform a procedure, wherein the practitioners are prioritized in a plurality of tiers depending on the number of procedures that they have performed; and

means for sorting practitioners on the referral directory to produce a referral list in response to an inquiry from a prospective patient in a particular geographic location wherein practitioners are first sorted based on proximity to the geographic location and then preferentially selected based on the tier to which the practitioner has been assigned.

61. A computer system as in claim 60, wherein the means for maintaining comprises an electronic database that is updateable to add and remove practitioners and to change the tier status of individual practitioners.

62. A computer system as in claim 60 or 61, wherein the electronic database includes at least three tiers with practitioners who have performed more than a first threshold number of procedures being in a higher tier, those who have performed more than a second threshold number but less than the first threshold number being in a lower tier, and those who have performed less than the second threshold number being in a still lower tier.

63. A computer system as in claim 62, wherein the number of times the procedure is performed is measured over a fixed time interval.

64. A computer system as in claim 62, wherein the number of times the procedure is performed is cumulative.

65. A computer system as in claim 60, wherein the practitioners are not ordered within a tier.

66. A computer system as in claim 60, wherein the practitioners are further ranked within each tier based on the number of procedures performed.

67. A computer system as in claim 60, wherein the means for sorting will select a plurality of practitioners for each referral list with at least practitioners from the highest tier being selected most often, those from the lower tier being selected less often, and those from the still lower tier being selected still less often.

68. A computer system as in claim 60, wherein only a single practitioner is selected for each referral list, with at least practitioners from the highest tier being selected most often, those from the lower tier being selected less often, and those from the still lower tier being selected still less often.

69. A computer system as in claim 60, wherein all practitioners are selected at least some of the time.

70. A computer system as in claim 60, further comprising means for inputting data into the maintaining means and means for displaying the referral lists.