Enquiries can be made to providers to request a service for a client during a specific time period. Enquiries help to prevent a case worker from scheduling a service if the provider specified cannot deliver the service during the required time frame. The provider can then respond to the enquiry and indicate if it can provide it or not.
There are three ways in which the agency can make an enquiry: by email, via the web, or over the phone. Enquiries sent by web enquiry can be accessed by the provider within their provider portal account. For information on provider portal accounts, see the Cúram Provider Management Guide. When a web enquiry is made, an email is automatically sent to the provider to alert it to the web enquiry. Enquiries made by phone can also be recorded.
Providers can respond to enquiries to indicate whether or not they can deliver the service or they can add a comment or question to the enquiry. Responses to email enquiries are sent by email and the case worker can subsequently update the enquiry on the system to reflect the provider's response or comment. Responses to web enquiries can be recorded in the provider portal. In this case, the enquiry is updated automatically by the system. An email is sent to the case worker who sent the enquiry to alert him or her that the provider has responded to the service enquiry.
The way in which an enquiry is made to a provider depends on two things: the preferred enquiry method of the provider, which can be set when registering a provider, and whether the provider has a valid email and provider portal account.
If a preferred enquiry method is specified for a provider, the method specified is the only method that can be used to send an enquiry. If a preferred enquiry method is not specified, an enquiry can only be sent by email if the provider has a valid email recorded on the system. A web enquiry can only be sent if the provider has a provider portal account. If a provider does not have a valid email recorded on the system or does not have a provider portal account, only phone enquiries can be recorded.
Statistics are also automatically provided that highlight the average length of time that it takes a provider to send an initial response to an enquiry and the percentage of enquiries that they have responded to are provided. Statistics help case workers to identify whether to contact a particular provider and the length of time they may have to wait before they get a response.