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Integrative consults remove referral inefficiencies

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William Check, PhD

July 2017—Inappropriate referrals to rheumatologists and months-long wait times led pathologists to start a service at Harris Health in Houston of consultative-algorithmic workups for rheumatologic disease.

“Everyone liked it. Rheumatologists were happy to get patients they could treat and who were already worked up,” Robert L. Hunter, MD, PhD, says of the service that gave primary care providers the option of selecting algorithmic testing with pathologist consultation rather than order individual tests when signs and symptoms suggested rheumatologic disease. He and his colleagues in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston instituted the service in 2014 to help primary care providers decide when to refer patients for a rheumatology consult.

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