Why we ask for a clinical referral pathway (not a self-referral pathway)
Patients in the last months of life rarely ask for help with the debt burden — they are managing symptoms, family, and mortality, and the debt shame keeps them silent. The clinical team is usually the first to observe that something is wrong at home: a patient declining a treatment because of cost, a household member disclosing bailiff visits during a family meeting, financial-hardship affect on the palliative-care distress screen.
A clinician referral pathway is more effective than a public self-referral pathway because it catches the households that would otherwise never reach a licensed advocate in time. Referrals from you produce referrals we can actually help, at the moment help is still possible.
The referral in three steps
Confirm eligibility
Adult Australian resident with a life-limiting or terminal diagnosis, carrying consumer debt (credit card, loan, mortgage, ATO, utility, BNPL, or similar) that is causing distress. No minimum debt amount, no means test.
Explain the pathway to the patient (and family)
Free, no obligation, no shame, no debt-cop bureaucracy. A licensed advocate calls or visits, gathers what the patient knows about their debts, obtains authorities to search for anything else, and negotiates with creditors on the patient's behalf. Patient does not deal with creditors again.
Submit the referral
Either the patient calls directly, or you initiate with the patient's verbal consent. The referral form on /referrals takes about 3 minutes. Alternatively, phone the intake line (published post-launch) and we call the household back within 48 hours.
We accept the clinician's judgement. Formally: any diagnosis where death is expected within months to a small number of years, whether cancer, end-stage organ failure, motor-neurone disease, advanced dementia, or other. If you are considering whether a patient is "sick enough" to refer, they are. We would rather receive a referral for a patient who lives longer than expected than miss a patient who dies before intake.
What happens after your referral
- Within 48 hours — intake coordinator makes contact with the patient or nominated family member.
- Within 1–2 weeks — first substantive meeting with the licensed advocate. Debts identified, authorities signed. Patient's involvement in creditor contact ends here.
- 4–8 weeks — first hardship outcomes typically landing (statutory hardship variations under NCCP, credit-provider hardship policies, ATO deferrals or write-offs, insurance terminal-illness benefit claims).
- With patient consent — case-outcome summary shared with your team. Opt-in, not default.
- Longer-arc cases — some debts (disputed, insured, guarantor-shared) run longer. Case cycle time is one of the four measured outputs on every case, so timelines can be reported back on request.
What we ask of the treating team
Very little. The referral is the entire ask. We do not require documentation from you beyond a name, contact, and confirmation of clinical eligibility. We do not require you to explain the debt to the patient — that is the licensed advocate's job. We do not require you to follow up on the case; we follow up with you if the patient consents.
If your team would like to formalise a pathway (protocol, shared record, aggregate outcome reporting), Room F (health-sector partnerships) supports that. See the Room F landing page or contact us.
Start a referral or set up a pathway
For a single-patient referral, use the public referral form. For a service-level pathway agreement (hospital MDT, palliative-care service, community palliative program), request a Room F conversation.
Public referral form → Room F partnership →Frequently asked (FAQ)
Who is eligible for referral?
Is there any fee to the patient?
What information does the patient need to bring?
How long does the referral pathway take?
Does the treating team receive case outcome information?
Is LWD an ACNC-registered charity?
Related
- Room F · Health-sector partnerships overview
- Public referral form — for the patient's route in
- How LWD can help — patient-facing summary
- Beneficiary depiction guardrails — how we talk about the patients we serve
- Theory of change — the systems-change logic