Patient Access

From referral to procedure, without the bottlenecks.

Shift Agents work every step between the referral and the procedure at the same time, and flag the few patients who need your team.

Shift Agents · Patient Access

Marcus T. · Injection scheduled this week

1 of 4

  • DI

    Document Intake Agent

    Order read — lumbar epidural injection, Dr. Alvarez.

  • RF

    Referral Agent

    Qualification

  • IV

    Insurance Verification Agent

    Coverage

  • SC

    Scheduling Agent

    Procedure

Referred Mon 8:12am · wants in this week

The front end today

Most denials start before the patient is seen.

Referrals sit in a fax queue, coverage isn’t re-checked until the front desk, and a missing auth is discovered too late. Every figure below is a cited industry benchmark, not a Shift claim.

44%

of inbound documents are time-sensitive, and most are still processed by hand

Document Intake

Documo, 2025

68%

of providers name bad intake data a top denial driver, the #3 cause overall

Insurance Verification + Registration

Experian, 2025

~13 hrs

per physician, per week, on ~40 prior authorizations

Prior Auth

AMA, 2025

~$200

lost per no-show

Scheduling

BMC Health Services Research, 2016

Referral to procedure

Patients don’t get lost. They get stuck.

Between the referral and the procedure, patients stall in the gaps: a note that never came, an auth nobody chased, a card that expired. Shift Agents clear every one of them at the same time, so more referrals become scheduled procedures.

  1. The fax no one has sorted Document Intake

    Every referral read and filed to the right patient, and anything missing requested from the sender.

  2. The referral sitting in a queue Referral

    Qualified and routed the day it arrives, before the patient schedules somewhere else.

  3. The coverage no one re-checked Insurance Verification

    Verified when the procedure is scheduled, and again before it.

  4. The auth waiting on one more note Prior Auth

    Documentation assembled, submitted, and followed all the way to a decision.

  5. The procedure no one scheduled Scheduling

    Scheduled the day the referral clears, confirmed by text, and rescheduled without breaking the auth.

  6. The form left for check-in Registration

    Card, consents, and copay done before the patient arrives.

  7. Procedure scheduled. Patient ready. Claim starts clean.

Your steps, not a template. Shift Agents follow what each procedure and payer actually requires. A repeat injection might need two steps; a lumbar MRI, five.

Every text, call, and email to the patient goes out over Channels: Voice, Messaging, Podium, or Email.

This week’s referrals

Mon 9:00am

29 procedures scheduled7 moving2 need your team

+ 32 more referrals this week

Priya S. · Prior Auth Agent · working

Auth required. PT notes weren’t in the chart, so they were requested from the therapy clinic, received, and submitted. Decision expected Wednesday.

MemoryThis payer wants 6 weeks of PT documented for lumbar MRI.

Illustrative week. Patients and times are representative, not results.

How it works together

Shift Agents hand off the same patient record, the same coverage data, the same referral, from the moment it arrives to the procedure. Nothing gets re-entered, nothing gets lost between steps, and they remember what they learn: this payer wants imaging attached, this office sends notes separately.

Explore the platform →

Control & trust

Choose the autonomy tier per agent: start with review on everything, move to autonomous as it proves out. Every action logged.

Security & compliance →

See the whole journey run on your own referrals.