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Yes. Fax remains the standard way doctors send referrals to specialists: most specialist offices still run referral intake off a fax queue. Put the referral letter behind a cover sheet with the patient name and date of birth, the referring physician's contact details, the number of pages, and an urgency flag. Include only the clinical details the specialist needs, not the full chart.
| Cover sheet field | What to write | Why the office needs it |
|---|---|---|
| To / From | Specialist's name and practice; your name, clinic, and direct phone or fax number | The office routes the fax to the right inbox and can call back about problems |
| Date | The date you send it | Establishes when the referral entered their queue |
| Patient name and date of birth | Full name, DOB; add a health card number only if their intake form asks for it | Identifies the patient without exposing extra identifiers on the cover sheet |
| Number of pages | Count including the cover sheet itself | A staff member can tell instantly whether a page went missing in transmission |
| Urgency flag | Routine, semi-urgent, or urgent, with a requested response timeframe | Offices triage the fax pile by this flag; an unflagged referral defaults to routine |
| Reason for referral | One line: the diagnosis or question being referred | Lets the specialist decide whether they are the right person before booking |
Less than most people send. A good referral letter contains the reason for referral, relevant history and exam findings, key test results and imaging already done, current medications and allergies, and what the referring physician wants the specialist to do (diagnose, treat, give an opinion). What it should not contain is the patient's entire medical record. Specialists triage dozens of referrals a week, and a 40-page chart dump slows that down without helping. If the specialist wants more, they will ask. Patients sometimes fax their own referral at a doctor's request: the same rules apply, and you should confirm with the specialist's office that they accept patient-initiated referrals, since some practices only process referrals that come directly from a physician.
Because the fax is the one channel every clinic already has. Electronic referral systems exist (Ontario, for example, runs eReferral through its Ocean network), but coverage is patchy, and a specialist's office cannot be sure a given referring clinic uses the same system. A fax number works from anywhere, and the confirmation page gives the sender a time-stamped record that the transmission completed. That confirmation page is worth keeping: file it with the referral letter, because if a patient is ever told "we never received it," the confirmation page with the date, time, and receiving number is your proof. Also note that faxing health information to a provider involved in a patient's care is the intended workflow under privacy rules, not an exception to them: the issue is sending it to the wrong number, so double-check the fax number against the specialist's directory listing, not a stale sticky note.
LetterAgent's fax feature is currently in testing (activation is in progress): describe it as available in testing, not as a service you can rely on for a time-sensitive referral today. When active, you send a fax by asking your AI assistant: you get a per-fax quote with the page count verified, approve the exact total, pay once through Stripe, and the fax is sent. Coverage is US and Canadian fax numbers only, and there are no inbound faxes, which is fine for referrals since they are outbound by nature. Remember to count the cover sheet in your page count when you get the quote. If the referral is urgent and fax is not yet reliably available to you, a phone call to the specialist's office remains the fastest way to get a patient seen.
Ready to fax it? Fax with LetterAgent: describe it to your AI assistant, approve the exact quoted price, and it is sent.
LetterAgent is a working name. Prices include print, postage, and our service fee. US prices in USD, Canadian prices in CAD (Canadian prices exclude applicable sales tax, added at checkout). Currently in private testing.
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