Optimizing Human Services Intake with AI and Automation 

With the increasing consumer demand and economic impacts of today’s healthcare costs, human services organizations are under steady pressure to do more with less. Intake teams juggle rising referral volumes, fragmented information across sources and inconsistent workflows while simultaneously trying to deliver timely access to care. It’s a burnout-inducing process that often feels stuck in the past. Paper faxes still arrive daily. Critical information hides buried inside cryptic PDFs. Staff spend precious time retyping data and duplicating work. 

Thankfully, opportunities exist to reduce or eliminate many of these painful operating processes. 

The recent rise of AI and Automation tools are finally sophisticated enough to take on the tedious parts of intake, giving human services staff more room for the work that actually requires human judgment and critical thinking. 

In a recent presentation led by Netsmart Vice President of Solution Management Nicki Grose and Senior Client Success Manager Andrew Johns, the leaders guided attendees through the challenges facing intake teams, the technology reshaping the process and the inspiring outcomes early adopters are seeing. 

Let’s unpack the key takeaways from the session. 

Intake’s fragmentation problem 

Across the industry, inbound referrals rarely arrive in tidy, structured formats. Teams manage shared inboxes, monitor eFax queues, dig through PDFs and manually re-enter data into spreadsheets or EHRs. 

These outdated and tedious tasks often result in preventable errors and a rapid increase in provider burnout from the compounding stress of scattered attention. Other common downsides to legacy processes include:

• Hours spent scrutinizing poorly scanned or low-quality documents 
• Duplicate data entry
• Lost or incomplete referral information
• Minimal visibility into trends, capacity and referral patterns 

There have been times when I've sat with intake staff who were zooming into PDFs that were clearly a photo of a photo in an attempt to decipher important diagnostic and demographic information. Despite needing a magnifying glass and detective skills to analyze documents, it’s no mystery why staff morale falls by the wayside. When entire teams are tied up deciphering documents instead of preparing clients for services, meaningful work slows and staff get frustrated. 

Referral Manager centralizes the front door

To tackle these critical process issues, Netsmart created Referral Manager, a unified solution that pulls all referral channels into one organized dashboard. Regardless of whether referrals arrive via email, eFax, secure direct message or manual upload, they land in one place with consistent tracking. 

Staff can get a personalized dashboard showing worklists, tasks, program-specific queues, and even organizational waitlists. Referral packets live alongside automated timelines, notes and secure CareChat messaging so interdisciplinary teams can communicate right inside the referral record. 

And because Referral Manager can integrate with Netsmart EHRs, accepted referrals can be preadmitted directly into the EHR using the data already captured. For non-Netsmart EHR’s Referral Manager supports exchanging referral data through FHIR API’s.  

 

The real breakthrough: Smart Referrals AI 

The newest AI-powered capability by Netsmart, Smart Referrals, reads entire referral packets—including scanned PDFs and even handwritten forms—and extracts key fields automatically. Demographics, payer details, diagnoses and contact information are pulled into structured data fields without staff having to type them in. 

One Netsmart provider organization implemented the AI-powered solution with smart referral capabilities, integrated with their EHR. The tool digitized intake workflows, streamlined communication and created transparency across teams, leading to an immediate transformation. What once took 12 tedious minutes to process now takes just over two minutes—from the start of analyzing a referral with AI to sending it for medical review. This provider’s staff can now view, sort and track all referrals in one queue, reducing backlog and enabling faster decision making.  

The best part: staff don’t need to train the AI on formats or templates. It’s built to recognize the standard data points intake teams need, no matter the layout or source. 

 

Automation empowers proactive intake 

Once a referral is created, automation rules immediately manage the next steps. Organizations can work with Netsmart to design workflows that:

• Change referral status when certain fields are completed
• Generate tasks or follow-up steps for specific team members
• Trigger email notifications to internal staff
• Assign priority levels based on predefined criteria 

One example shared was if a referral comes in for a child, but the organization only treats adults; a rule can automatically mark the referral as “declined”. On the other end of the spectrum, a high-priority case can instantly route to clinical review with all tasks preassigned to speed up care delivery. 

These workflows can reduce delays, keep teams aligned and build consistency across programs. 

 

Expanding adoption to maximize impact 

As providers continue to adopt AI and automation in healthcare settings, we’re already experiencing their impact on both sides of care. AI-enabled intake tools are helping teams speed up referral processing, easing staff workloads and bringing long-needed clarity to fragmented data. And for consumers, barriers to care are coming down, pathways to better outcomes are on the rise and most importantly providers are liberated to spend more meaningful time with those in their care. 

But the real shift for behavioral health organizations is what comes next. As Smart Referrals, automation and integrated dashboards advance, intake can move from a reactive step to a more strategic, forward-looking part of care delivery. 

The future is one where staff spend less time sorting information and more time supporting individuals entering care. With AI helping teams handle tedious work, organizations can streamline access, strengthen coordination and open a wider door that keeps pace with community needs. 

 About the Author

Andrew Johns is a strategic leader in healthcare technology with a strong background in population health, data analytics and client success. As Senior Client Success Manager for Care Manager at Netsmart, Andrew partners with healthcare organizations to optimize outcomes through technology-driven solutions, aligning business strategy with operational execution.