What's a good AI prompt for turning clinical notes into a referral letter

The Prompt

Turn the following clinical notes into a referral letter to [specialist/specialty].

Clinical notes: [paste notes]
Reason for referral: [specific question you want the specialist to address]
Relevant history: [pertinent past history, medications, prior workup already done]
Urgency: [routine / urgent, with timeframe]

Write for a specialist reader — use standard clinical terminology, not patient-facing language. Lead with the specific question you want answered, not the full history.

Why This Prompt Works

Referral letters that bury the actual clinical question under a full history chart-dump are a well-documented source of specialist frustration and delayed triage — leading with “here’s what I need you to answer” lets the receiving specialist triage urgency and relevance immediately.

How to Customize It

Specify what workup has already been done so the specialist doesn’t repeat it — that’s often the single most useful line in the letter, and it’s frequently the one thing left out of a rushed referral. Include the ordering clinician’s direct contact information too, since specialists often have a quick follow-up question the letter itself doesn’t anticipate.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Don’t let this drift into patient-facing plain language — a referral letter’s audience is a fellow clinician, and jargon-stripping here actually removes useful precision. Also avoid padding the letter with the full visit history when only the pertinent portion actually bears on the referral question — a specialist working through a stack of referrals will skim past anything that reads as noise.

Bottom Line

A referral-letter prompt should front-load the specific clinical question and already-completed workup, written for a specialist audience — the opposite instruction set from a patient-facing summary.