I’ve had the same conversation dozens of times over the past year.

Whether it’s with the CEO of a 20-physician orthopedic group or a regional MSO leader overseeing multiple locations, the themes are familiar:

• Patient volume feels unpredictable.
• PCP relationships don’t deliver like they used to.
• There’s urgency to grow, but no clear path to do it.

These leaders aren’t confused. 

They’re operating in a system that changed faster than their tools could.

That’s the story behind the new referral growth game.

The Rules Changed While You Were Delivering Care

Referral growth used to come from relationships, reputation, and routine.

You stayed in the good graces of your PCP network, delivered great care, and the patients showed up.

Today, the game is different:

• 75% of PCPs are now employed by health systems and refer in-system.
• Employers are building their own referral networks and expect outcomes, not handoffs.
• Navigators and digital health platforms control steerage through their own ecosystems.
• Patients make decisions earlier—often before your intake process even begins.

The volume is still out there. But it’s no longer pointed at you by default.

When Pathways Disappear, Everyone Loses

As traditional referral routes close and new ones remain undefined, disconnection grows.

I hear it all the time:

• A patient who needed your help ends up in a bloated system with no specialty alignment.
• A care navigator wants to refer someone to you—but can’t make it happen efficiently.
• A business development lead lands a new partner—but the access experience isn’t clear or consistent.

The impact is operational and personal.

When the handoff fails, people get stuck. Teams lose trust. Referrals don’t convert.

Referral Blindness Is Blocking Your Growth

Most growth teams I speak with aren’t lacking effort—they’re lacking visibility.

They can’t tell which partners actually drive value.

Marketing can’t prove what’s working.

Operations scramble to fulfill access expectations that were never operationalized.

This is Referral Blindness: the inability to see, manage, and optimize your most important referral relationships.

It shows up as:

• Unstructured offers
• Vague agreements
• No clear attribution

And it’s become the number one blocker to growth.

What Sustainable Growth Now Requires

Growth today depends on infrastructure—on three durable capabilities:

• Structure: Defined access offers designed for specific referral partners
• Visibility: Real-time intelligence on which strategies, partners, and channels are effective
• Connection: Tools that make it easy for partners to refer, and for your team to deliver

Referrals are no longer something you receive. They’re something you build the conditions to win.

What We’ve Built (and Why)

Hatch didn’t start with a tech spec. It started with conversations like the ones I mentioned above—leaders trying to grow, but blocked by the absence of systems designed for modern referral dynamics.

We built Hatch to fill that gap.

• Hatchways give you the ability to create digital access offers—like VIP scheduling, bundled pricing, or chat guidance—tailored to specific partners or campaigns.
  Referral workflows are built in, with SLAs, attribution, and routing logic already in place.
• Referral intelligence dashboards show which partners and pathways are driving results, so you can reinvest where it counts.

We’ve created the platform infrastructure that aligns your referral growth with how the world now works.

What This Is Really About

Behind every referral is a patient who needs care—and a partner trying to help them get it.

Without the right infrastructure, those moments break down. The referral doesn’t land. The patient waits too long or gives up. The opportunity to build trust is lost.

When the right systems are in place, those moments turn into something more:

• A parent gets their kid in for care the next day.
• A local employer steers patient members directly to you year after year.
• A specialist gets to say “yes, I can help”—and be confident their team can help follow through at every step.

That’s what this platform is designed to enable.

Let’s Build the Next Playbook Together

The referral game has changed.

You can’t rely on the same tools, the same strategy, or the same networks to carry you forward.

If you’re ready to structure your access, measure what’s working, and win the next chapter of referral growth on your terms—we’d love to help you do it.

—Chris Poole
CEO, Hatch