External Referral Identifier

The first component is a string of up to 15 characters that identifies an individual referral. It is typically assigned by the referred-to provider application responding to a referral originating from a referring provider application, and it identifies a referral, and the subsequent referral transactions, uniquely among all such referrals for a particular referred-to provider processing application. For example, when a primary care provider (referring provider) sends a referral to a specialist (referred-to provider), the specialist_s application system may accept the referral and assign it a new referral identifier which uniquely identifies that particular referral within the specialist_s application system. This new referral identifier would be placed in the external referral identifier field when the specialist responds to the primary care physician.