01 · Inbound referral coordination
Referrals arrive. Patients get booked. Charts stay current.
For specialty practices on Athena. We read every inbound referral, whether it arrives by fax, web form, phone, or email, create the chart, verify eligibility, and book the appointment. First patient contact: ~5 min. Up to 80% of coordination work automated. Your team stays in the loop on the other 20%.
athenahealth specialist. Four established EHR integrations.HIPAA compliantSOC 2 Type 2 auditedBAA available
Illustrative workflow. Sample timestamps are not performance benchmarks.
- 09:14FAX RECEIVEDPARSED
Cardiology referral, 3 pages, sender: Dr. K. Patel (PCP)
- 09:14CHART CREATED IN ATHENAIN ATHENA
M.R., DOB on file, eligibility verified (Aetna PPO)
- 09:18PATIENT REACHEDLIVE
Outreach #1 answered. SMS confirmation queued.
- 09:31APPOINTMENT BOOKEDCLOSED LOOP
Dec 9, 2026 · 2:30 PM · Dr. Chen · 30 min slot
Your fax queue is the bottleneck of your specialty practice.
45 to 90 minutes per manual referral (Linear Health analysis). Up to 50% of specialty referrals are not completed.
of specialty referrals are not completed.
per manual referral
LINEAR HEALTH ANALYSIS
Hiring two more coordinators doesn't fix this. The model doesn't work anymore.
Seven steps. One platform. Closed inside Athena.
Illustrative workflow from inbound referral intake to appointment scheduling and confirmation. Up to 80% of coordination work automated. Your team stays in the loop on the other 20%.
- 01Fax arrivesAny DID, plus web form, email, or phoneINTAKE
- 02Document extractedDemographics, insurance, referral reason, CPTPARSED
- 03Chart created or matchedNew patient or existing, with eligibility verifiedLOOP OPENING
- 04Patient outreachSMS, email, and voice AI in the patient's preferred languagePATIENT OUTREACH
- 05Scheduling rules appliedProvider availability, payer specifics, telehealth versus in-person, prior auth flagged when neededRULES APPLIED
- 06Appointment bookedInside Athena, tailored to your providers and scheduling rulesSCHEDULED
- 07Loop closedConfirmation back to the referring providerLOOP CLOSED
04 · What it actually does
The numbers a specialty COO actually wants.
MEASURED ACROSS LINEAR HEALTH CUSTOMERS, ROLLING 90 DAYSATHENA-CONNECTED SPECIALTY PRACTICES
Linear Health completely transformed how we operate. They replaced five disconnected tools we were using to manage referrals, scheduling, and patient outreach. Now our entire workflow runs through one platform.
What clinical ops teams ask before signing.
01Do you work with my EHR?
Linear runs on top of your existing EHR rather than replacing it. athenahealth, NextGen, eClinicalWorks, and Greenway Health are established integrations, connected through standard health-data interfaces, and booked appointments and status updates are written back into your chart.
02We're already on Athena. Will this break our setup?
No. Linear connects via Athena's official API and works inside your existing tenant. We don't replace anything. We don't ask your IT team to install software. First workflow live in 4 weeks, with no EHR migration.
03What about HIPAA, PHI, and our security team?
HIPAA compliant. SOC 2 Type 2 audited. BAA available.
04What happens to our coordinators?
Up to 80% of coordination work automated. Your team stays in the loop on the other 20%.
05What if the AI gets it wrong?
It routes to a human. We tune the model on your fax patterns during onboarding, and any extraction with confidence below threshold is queued to a coordinator for one-click review. The handoff is the product, not a fallback.
06How much does it cost?
We price against the team you have today, not against a SaaS comparable. Every proposal shows your return against your own numbers. We build to 3x or better. The pricing conversation lives on the demo call. If we can't beat the cost of one full-time coordinator on the same volume, we don't pitch.
07How fast can we go live?
First workflow live in 4 weeks.
Run your numbers.
Drag the sliders. Recovered capacity recalculates live, against an 80% automation assumption. Your team stays in the loop on the other 20%.
Your operation today
Run your numbers.
Your inputs
Enter your monthly volume and minutes per referral.
Your estimate
80% automation of referral coordination. Your team stays in the loop on the other 20%.
Capacity reclaimed
1,400 hours
per month
| Monthly | Today | Reclaimed |
|---|---|---|
| Staff hours | 1,750 | 1,400 |
See a referral close itself end to end in your EHR.
Bring your hardest referral. We'll run it through outbound, inbound, and write-back live on the call. Same payer chaos, same Athena instance, same fax queue you fight with every day.