Creating a referral
A referral is the authorization to deliver a service to a particular person, within a family, over an authorized date range. FCR walks you through it with a step-by-step intake wizard that saves as you go, so you can start now and finish later.
Before you start
Who can do this: practice managers, supervisors, and admins.
Have ready:
- The family — it must already exist in FCR and have its DCS case number. (Create it first if needed — see Adding and managing a family.)
- The DCS referral details, including the referral ID and the authorized service and date range.
- The DCS family case manager (FCM) contact information.
- Which family members are covered by this referral.
- Who the referral is for — the one person the service is being delivered to. They must be one of the covered members.
Most referrals are DCS referrals, and the steps below describe that path. Choices and non-DCS referrals (DMHA, Medicaid, and other funders) work the same way with a slightly different information section — see Referral sources below.
Run the intake wizard
- Open the family (or go to Referrals → Add referral) and start the wizard.
- Work through the steps: the referral and service details, the DCS family case manager, the covered members and which of them the referral is for, and the authorized service.
- Save and continue as you go. After the early steps, the referral is held as pending intake, and you can choose Save as pending and exit at any point and pick it back up later.
- When everything's in, activate the referral to make it a live case.
The wizard saves your progress, so a phone call or a missing detail doesn't cost you the work. A pending-intake referral waits for you on the Referrals list.
The case manager fills in as you type
When you enter the DCS family case manager (or, on a Choices referral, the Coordinator), FCR suggests case managers your agency has entered before. Pick one and their phone, county, and email fill in automatically — no retyping, and no more slightly-different spellings of the same person across your cases.
This directory builds itself. The first time you type a new case manager's name, FCR simply remembers it for next time; there's nothing to set up and no list to maintain. Typing a name that isn't a match just starts a new entry.
Case manager details are set once, at creation
The case manager fields are filled in when the referral is first created. If you leave a pending referral and come back to it later, you'll find those four fields greyed out and read-only, with a note pointing you at the right tool.
That's deliberate. Contact details are kept as a dated history so past monthly reports keep showing whoever was actually on the case at the time — and typing into the wizard on a return visit would have quietly gone nowhere. A locked field that explains itself is better than a change you think you made.
To correct or replace them, finish the referral and use Change contact or Correct on the referral page — see Changing or correcting the case manager below.
Referral sources: DCS, Choices, and other funders
FCR supports referrals from more than just DCS. The wizard is the same; only the information section changes to match the funder.
- DCS — the standard referral (DCS referral ID, region, and the DCS family case manager). This is the most common case.
- Choices — Choices is a managed care organization serving DCS-involved families. A Choices referral works just like a DCS one — the same services, time rules, and monthly reports — but its information section is labeled for Choices: a Choices Referral ID, region, and a Coordinator (name, phone, county, and email) in place of the DCS family case manager, plus agency notes. (Behind the scenes, Choices bills through its own channel rather than KidTraks — your billing steps for Choices cases differ, but intake looks familiar.)
- Other funders (DMHA, Medicaid, and more) — non-DCS clinical case management. These use a plain Referral ID (not a DCS referral ID) and skip the DCS-specific fields. Their cases are documented with clinical notes rather than billing-coupled progress notes.
FCR shows the right information section automatically based on the service you choose — you don't set the funder separately.
Covered members
You record which members the referral covers. This matters for every service, and it's especially important for Family Preservation, where the number of children covered on a given day drives the daily authorization. Keep the covered list accurate as the household changes.
Who the referral is for
Right below the covered list, you choose the one person the referral is for — the primary recipient. Everyone else stays covered exactly as they are.
Their name is what the rest of FCR shows. Tasks, lists, document headers, notifications, the timesheet, approval queues — all of it names the person rather than the family's filing label. That's the point: a household's display name ("Thunderman Family") is a convenience for filing, and the people inside it often don't share it. A staff member working the father's referral shouldn't be told their client is a family name that isn't his.
It's a set of radio buttons, not a dropdown, because a referral has exactly one primary recipient. You can only ever pick one, so there's nothing to validate and nothing that can be entered wrong.
- Only covered members can be chosen. Cover the person first, then pick them.
- Changing your mind never removes anyone. Choosing someone new leaves the previous person covered — just no longer the recipient.
- You can change it any time afterwards. On a live referral, open Manage coverage on the referral page and pick a different person. It's the same control, in both places.
A referral with no primary recipient simply displays the family name, exactly as it always did. That's a perfectly normal state for a referral you're still building — the choice is only required at the moment you activate.
If a referral names several people
Referrals created before this feature existed sometimes list more than one person as the recipient. Those cases keep working. They display as "Eric Johnson +2", they explain themselves when you open Manage coverage, and picking one person sets it straight in a single click. Everyone else stays covered.
Nothing is ever blocked while that's true — you can still edit coverage, document work, and bill the case normally.
Services with more than one component
Some referrals authorize more than one kind of work — for example, Home-Based Casework with both face-to-face hours and court appearances. The wizard lets you add each authorized piece to the same referral, so a multi-part referral lives as one case.
Activating the referral
To go live, a referral needs three things:
- at least one covered member
- at least one authorized service
- exactly one primary recipient — the person it's for
If any of them is missing when you try to activate, FCR tells you what's missing and sends you to the right place to fix it. For the recipient, that's a button straight to Manage coverage.
You can save, edit, view, and change coverage on an incomplete referral for as long as you like. Activation is the point where FCR asks for the one thing every later screen is going to name.
This applies only at the moment a referral goes live. Older active referrals — including any that list several people as the recipient — keep working exactly as they are. Nothing gets deactivated, and nothing needs fixing before you can carry on working the case.
If you enter a DCS referral ID that's already on another referral in your agency, FCR will flag it. Double-check the number rather than creating a duplicate.
Changing or correcting the case manager
Cases change hands, and phone numbers change. On an active referral, the case manager section gives you two distinct actions — and picking the right one keeps your past reports honest.
- A different case manager takes over the case. Use Change. FCR records the handoff with a date and keeps the history: monthly reports for earlier months still show the case manager who was actually on the case then, while new work goes to the new one.
- The same case manager's details need fixing — a typo, a new phone number, an updated email. Use Correct. FCR updates that person's contact information on every case they're currently active on, so you fix it once. Correcting details never rewrites a past report.
Each monthly report reflects the case manager who was on the case during that report's period. You don't have to do anything — changing the case manager going forward never changes what an already-filed report says.
Who can do this: practice managers, supervisors, and admins.
FAQ
FCR won't let me create a referral for this family. The family needs its DCS case number first. Add it to the family record, then return to the referral.
I couldn't activate — it said something was missing. Activation requires at least one covered member, at least one authorized service, and exactly one primary recipient. FCR points you to whichever one needs attention.
It says this referral "does not have a primary recipient yet." Open Manage coverage on the referral, and under Primary recipient choose the person the referral is for. They have to be covered first — if they aren't on the covered list yet, add them there and then pick them.
It says several people are listed as the primary recipient. That happens on referrals created before FCR asked for a single recipient. Open Manage coverage and choose the one it's actually for. Everyone else stays covered — you're not removing anyone.
A referral is showing a name with "+2" after it. It lists three people as the recipient. Nothing is broken and nothing is blocked; open Manage coverage and pick one to clear it.
Who the referral is for has changed. Do I create a new referral? No — open Manage coverage and choose the new person. The previous recipient stays covered unless you end their coverage separately. Create a new referral only when DCS authorizes new work.
The name on this referral isn't the family name I filed it under. That's expected. Referrals are named for the person they serve, not the household's filing label. The family name still appears on the family record and on referrals that don't have a recipient set.
I typed the case manager's details on a pending referral and they didn't save. Those fields are read-only after the referral is first created — you should have seen them greyed out with a note. Finish the referral, then use Change contact or Correct on the referral page.
I had to stop partway through. Did I lose my work? No. After the first couple of steps the referral is saved as pending intake. Find it on the Referrals list and continue.
Can one family have several referrals? Yes. A family can carry multiple referrals over time — add a new one whenever DCS authorizes new work.
The case manager on this case changed. Should I just edit their name? No — use Change (not Correct) when a different person takes over. Correcting the name in place would treat it as fixing a typo and could relabel who appears on earlier reports. Change hands the case off with a date and leaves the history intact. Use Correct only when it's the same person whose details changed.
Need help with something this guide didn't cover? Contact support and we'll walk you through it.