How Are eRequests and Online Bookings Changing the Patient Journey in Radiology?
Patients are making more active decisions about their healthcare than ever before. Where they go for imaging depends on previous experience, location, out-of-pocket costs, appointment availability and how the practice communicates. In other words, the booking experience itself has become a competitive factor. Referrer recommendations still carry weight, but they are one input among many.
For radiology practices across Australia and New Zealand, the opportunity is to be front and center at the moment the request is created, and to make every step from that point as straightforward as possible.
What is the difference between a referral and a request in radiology?
Referral and request are used interchangeably across the radiology industry, but they have distinct meanings under national standards. A referral is a practitioner referring a patient to another practitioner. A request is a practitioner asking for a specific diagnostic service such as medical imaging or pathology. Medical imaging is technically a request. Kestral uses imaging request in our terminology in line with national standards and FHIR eRequesting frameworks.
Why Is the Request So Important for Radiology Practices?
The request is the starting point of the patient journey, and how a practice responds to it shapes everything that follows.
Traditionally, request management has relied on paper, fax, email or text. Each of these creates its own problems. Paper requests require the patient to physically collect and present the document. Faxed or texted referrals are prone to errors and can be misplaced. Email raises data security concerns. As a result, none of these methods give the practice a fast, reliable path to securing the appointment.
As telehealth has become a permanent part of the healthcare landscape, the problem has grown. A patient finishing a digital consultation has no natural next step unless the practice creates one. Without a connected referral workflow, that patient finds their own way to booking. There is no guarantee they land at the practice the referrer intended.
Kestral eRequests address this directly. The request is created electronically at the point of consultation, whether face to face or via telehealth, and transmitted immediately to the preferred radiology provider. The patient still holds a hard copy as required, but the practice receives it at the same moment. Booking staff can contact the patient straight away, putting the practice front and center before the patient has had a chance to look elsewhere.
In a telehealth scenario, this is particularly valuable. The patient never needs to collect a physical document. The practice reaches them within minutes of the consultation ending, with a confirmed appointment time already on the table.
How Do Online Bookings Work Alongside eRequests?
eRequests capture patients at the point of referral creation. Online Bookings serve a different but equally important group: patients who already hold a hard copy request and want to book at a time that suits them, without picking up the phone.
The workflow is straightforward. The patient visits the practice booking page, enters their contact details, uploads their request securely and books an appointment. The system is fully configurable, so practices decide which appointment types are available for online booking and which require staff handling. Standard examinations can be made available for self-service booking. Appointments that require preparation instructions, specific resource allocation or clinical review before confirmation can be restricted, with those requests routed directly to the appropriate staff member.
This gives practices meaningful control over the booking channel without creating a bottleneck. Patients get the convenience of booking outside office hours and on their own terms. Staff spend less time on incoming calls for straightforward bookings, and more time on the appointments that genuinely need their attention.
For a detailed look at how Kestral Online Bookings works in practice, see https://kestral.com.au/online-bookings/
What Does This Mean for Specialty and Complex Bookings?
For preparation-dependent appointments such as MRI or biopsy procedures, the margin for error in the booking process is low. An incorrect resource allocation, missed preparation instruction or inaccurate cost estimate creates problems that are difficult and time-consuming to resolve after the fact.
With eRequests, referral details arrive electronically and staff review them from the outset. This means preparation requirements are confirmed accurately, cost estimates are correct and the patient receives clear instructions well before their appointment. Practices using Kestral Online Bookings can configure these appointment types to route to staff for manual review rather than allowing automatic confirmation, ensuring the clinical and logistical requirements are met before anything is locked in.
Fewer errors at the booking stage means fewer calls to reschedule and patients who arrive prepared.
How Does a Connected Referral and Booking Workflow Improve Patient Experience?
The patient experience in radiology does not begin in the waiting room. It begins the moment the request is created. Practices that invest in the digital pathway between request and appointment reduce friction at every stage of the journey.
There is also a sustainability dimension worth noting. For example, electronic requests eliminate legibility problems and remove the reliance on paper-based processes that generate waste and slow down workflows on both sides.
Kestral eRequests and Online Bookings are built to work as a connected system. eRequests put the practice in position to secure the appointment at the earliest possible moment. Online Bookings give patients a fast, self-directed path when they are ready to book.
Together, they extend service availability and reduce front desk workload. In practice, every touchpoint in the referral-to-booking journey reflects on the quality of the practice.
For practice managers and owners evaluating where investment in digital workflows delivers real return, the request-to-booking pathway is one of the clearest places to start.
For more on how Karisma connects workflows across the full patient journey, see https://kestral.com.au/karisma/
