A planning guide for provider and school teams defining an appropriate status experience.
Authorized school staff need enough operational context to understand referral progress and their next action. Full clinical records remain in the provider’s EHR. Decide the exact visible fields and roles through the program’s information-sharing review.
Ask what the school contact is trying to coordinate. Are they confirming that a referral arrived, checking whether the provider needs an operational next step or understanding whether the referral has moved toward an appointment?
Define the purpose before choosing fields. A status view should help the authorized person do their work; it should not become a general window into clinical care.
| Illustrative stage | Meaning to define together | Boundary to discuss |
|---|---|---|
| Referral received | The referral is in the provider’s operational workflow. | Whether receipt is appropriate for this role to see. |
| Family step pending | Required consent or intake is not yet complete. | Whether the role should see only a broad completion indicator. |
| Awaiting assignment | The provider is coordinating an assignment. | What assignment context is necessary for the school. |
| First appointment scheduled | A first visit has been placed on the schedule. | Whether and how this status is shared. |
The examples are a planning framework, not a universal set of permitted disclosures. A program may use different stages or limit visibility further.
A school-facing update should not require copying treatment records into another system. SchoolSpan is designed for operational coordination, while full clinical records stay in the provider’s existing EHR.
Operational status is not automatically non-sensitive. Even confirming that a referral exists may require careful consideration of the role, purpose and applicable requirements. Discuss the exact fields with the people responsible for your program’s sharing decisions.
The portal can make an agreed process easier to follow, but it does not replace the relationship between school and provider teams.
Illustrative scenario: A school contact asks for a general referral update. The provider and school instead agree on a limited stage that communicates a family step is pending, together with who should handle the next follow-up. The conversation becomes about the next action rather than repeating a full status request.
Whether that status may be shared is a separate question for the program’s access and information-sharing review. The scenario illustrates coordination, not a claim that a specific disclosure is always appropriate.
SchoolSpan’s school portal is designed for secure, role-limited operational updates for authorized staff. It connects those updates with the provider’s referral, consent, assignment and reporting workflow.
Explore the school-facing experience →Review the information-sharing approach →SchoolSpan’s intended school portal scope is role-limited operational status. Full clinical records remain in the provider’s EHR.
No. Scheduling and attendance are different events. Provider and school teams should agree on the meaning of each visible status.
No. Appropriate visibility depends on role, purpose, permissions, authorizations, agreements and other applicable requirements. Review the actual fields before rollout.
Start with your schools, your current workflow and the coordination gaps you want to close.
Plan a conversation ↗SchoolSpan works alongside your existing EHR.