For dentists and dental offices

How to answer a hospital's dental clearance request

A dental clearance request is a deadline with your name on it. Answer it once, from the link, and the time your answer arrived is on the record for both sides.

What does the request need from you?

Your signed finding from the exam, before the date the answer is needed. The request carries the clinical question and that date. What clearance requires clinically stays with the referring program and your own judgment; the record holds what you observed and when.

The answer form records one finding from the exam, with the exam date and your notes:

• No active oral infection identified on examination.
• No active infection, with conditions or residual risk noted.
• Active infection or untreated disease identified; treatment not complete, with what is required and an estimated ready date.

If you cannot take the referral, tell the referring team the same day so they can send it elsewhere. That is more useful than silence for three weeks. The full one page form, with every box, is public on the Dental Clearance Response Record.

How do I send it back in one step?

Open the secure link in the request, confirm the patient's date of birth, and give your finding. If the request came by fax, enter the pickup code from the cover sheet on the pickup page. No account, no software, nothing for your IT to approve.

What do I get for answering here?

The same signed PDF the hospital holds, with the time your answer arrived. That makes the turnaround attributable to you rather than to the fax machine. The record also checks the responding NPI against the public federal provider registry and writes any mismatch into the record, which protects your name.

Questions dental offices ask

What is a dental clearance request?

A dental clearance request is a hospital team asking a dentist for a dated exam finding before a patient's treatment starts. Answer it free, in a browser.

Do I need an account or software to answer a clearance request?

No. You answer from the secure link in a browser after confirming the patient's date of birth, or, if the request came by fax, you enter the pickup code from the cover sheet. There is nothing to install and no account to make.

The clearance request came by fax. How do I answer it?

Enter the pickup code printed on the fax cover sheet at app.referralright.com/referral/pickup. You will be asked for the patient's date of birth before any record is shown, and then you can answer.

Does answering a clearance request cost the dental office anything?

No. ReferralRight is free for dentists, permanently: no fee to answer, no fee to be listed, and nothing per referral.

Who decides whether the patient can go ahead with treatment?

The medical team decides timing and risk. Your answer documents what you observed on the exam date, and the record never grades or characterizes your clinical judgment.