IPC분류정보
국가/구분 |
United States(US) Patent
등록
|
국제특허분류(IPC7판) |
|
출원번호 |
US-0534790
(2009-08-03)
|
등록번호 |
US-8326647
(2012-12-04)
|
발명자
/ 주소 |
- Chishti, Muhammad
- Vargha, Kenneth
- Breeland, Joe
|
출원인 / 주소 |
|
대리인 / 주소 |
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
|
인용정보 |
피인용 횟수 :
2 인용 특허 :
149 |
초록
▼
Practitioners are certified to perform a medical procedure, such as an orthodontic procedure. Certified practitioners are maintained in a referral directory and classified within tiers based on criteria such as the number of procedures that they have performed. Inquiries are solicited from prospecti
Practitioners are certified to perform a medical procedure, such as an orthodontic procedure. Certified practitioners are maintained in a referral directory and classified within tiers based on criteria such as the number of procedures that they have performed. Inquiries are solicited from prospective patients, and referral lists are provided to those patients who request them. The referral lists are obtained from the referral directory with doctors from higher tiers who have performed more procedures receiving preferential inclusion on the referral lists.
대표청구항
▼
1. A method for referring patients to practitioners to perform a procedure, said method comprising: maintaining a referral directory comprising data stored on a computer system, the referral directory data including contact information for practitioners and information that the practitioners, are ce
1. A method for referring patients to practitioners to perform a procedure, said method comprising: maintaining a referral directory comprising data stored on a computer system, the referral directory data including contact information for practitioners and information that the practitioners, are certified to perform the procedure, the data further comprising information for sorting practitioners prioritized in a plurality of tiers depending on the number of procedures that they have performed;electronically receiving inquiries from prospective patients regarding the procedure; andelectronically transmitting a referral to individual patients, in response to their requests, practitioners within the patient's geographic area, wherein practitioners are selected from the referral directory and sorted by the computer system such that the transmitted referral preferentially presents practitioners from tiers which require a higher number of procedures relative to practitioners from tiers which require a lower threshold number of procedures. 2. A method as in claim 1, wherein maintaining the referral directory comprises: certifying practitioners to perform the procedure;tracking the number of times each certified practitioner performs the procedure to produce a performance number for each practitioner; andperiodically updating the referral directory to reflect updated performance numbers. 3. A method as in claim 2, wherein the performance number comprises the aggregate number of procedures performed by an individual practitioner. 4. A method as in claim 2, wherein the performance number comprises the number of procedures performed by an individual practitioner over a predetermined time interval. 5. A method as in claim 1, wherein the plurality of tiers is at least three. 6. A method as in claim 1, wherein the method further comprises soliciting patients, the soliciting comprising advertising and providing contact information that permits a patient to contact a referral center. 7. A method as in claim 6, wherein the referral center comprises a person. 8. A method as in claim 6, wherein the referral center comprises an automated response system. 9. A method as in claim 1, wherein referring comprises: determining the location of the patient's geographic area; andgenerating from the referral directory a referral list of practitioners within the patient's geographic area, wherein the list includes a number of practitioners selected and/or arranged so that practitioners from higher tiers are preferentially referred. 10. A method as in claim 9, wherein the higher tiered practitioners are placed on lists in any geographic area more often than lower tiered practitioners. 11. A method as in claim 9, wherein the higher tiered practitioners are placed earlier on a single list than the lower tiered practitioners. 12. A method as in claim 1 wherein referring comprises: determining the location of the patient's geographic area; andselecting a single practitioner to be referred to the patient, wherein practitioners from higher tiers are selected more often than those from lower tiers. 13. A method as in claim 9 or 12, wherein all practitioners are included on at least some referral lists. 14. A method as in claim 1, wherein the referral directory comprises an electronic database, wherein soliciting comprises receiving voice or data inquiries from potential patients at a central location, and wherein referring comprises generating a referral list from the electronic database and responding to the inquiry by providing the referral list to the patient. 15. A method as in claim 14, wherein generating the referral list comprises presenting an ordered list of practitioners on a display screen and responding comprises reading at least some of the names of the practitioners to the potential patients. 16. A computer system for generating a list of medical practitioners, for referring to potential patients, said system comprising: an electronic database maintaining a referral directory which includes data comprising contact information for practitioners who are certified to perform a procedure, wherein the data comprises information allowing sorting of the practitioners prioritized in a plurality of tiers depending on the number of procedures that they have performed; andcomputer-readable instructions which, when executed by a computer, sort practitioners of the referral directory to produce a referral list in response to an inquiry from a prospective patient in a particular geographic location wherein practitioners are first sorted into tiers based on proximity to the geographic location and then sorted within each tier to which the practitioner has been assigned based on the number of procedures that they have performed. 17. A computer system as in claim 16, wherein the electronic database is updateable to add and remove practitioners and to change the tier status of individual practitioners. 18. A computer system as in claim 16 or 17, wherein the electronic database includes at least three tiers with practitioners who have performed more than a first threshold number of procedures being in a higher tier, those who have performed more than a second threshold number but less than the first threshold number being in a lower tier, and those who have performed less than the second threshold number being in a still lower tier. 19. A computer system as in claim 18, wherein the number of times the procedure is performed is measured over a fixed time interval. 20. A computer system as in claim 18, wherein the number of times the procedure is performed is cumulative. 21. A computer system as in claim 16, wherein the practitioners are not ordered within a tier. 22. A computer system as in claim 16, wherein the practitioners are further ranked within each tier based on the number of procedures performed. 23. A computer system as in claim 16, wherein the means for sorting will select a plurality of practitioners for each referral list with at least practitioners from the highest tier being selected most often, those from the lower tier being selected less often, and those from the still lower tier being selected still less often. 24. A computer system as in claim 16, wherein only a single practitioner is selected for each referral list, with at least practitioners from the highest tier being selected most often, those from the lower tier being selected less often, and those from the still lower tier being selected still less often. 25. A computer system as in claim 16, wherein all practitioners are selected at least some of the time. 26. A computer system as in claim 16, further comprising a computer for inputting data into the electronic database and a display for displaying the referral lists.
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