A video consultation works online, and so does a prescription. A blood test, a scan, and the medicine itself don't. For a lot of specialist conditions, such as bone health, thyroid problems, and menopause, the diagnosis rests on a sample or an image the clinician can't take on a video call, and the treatment arrives in a box.
So a virtual clinic depends on 3 kinds of partner: somebody to take and test blood, somebody to scan, and a pharmacy to dispense and deliver. Choosing them well, and joining them up, decides whether a patient in Carlisle or Cornwall gets the same care as one down the road.
This guide covers how to choose each partner, how the patient moves between them, and how every result makes its way back to the clinician who asked for it. We'll use a bone health clinic as the example throughout.
Key takeaways
- 01Ask every test provider 2 questions: can the patient pay you directly, and does the result come back to the clinician who requested it?
- 02Choose blood test collection per test: home kits, nurse visits, and partner clinics suit different tests and different patients.
- 03Agree scan referrals before launch: X-ray and DEXA providers decide who can refer to them under IR(ME)R 2017.
- 04Book the results call when you request the tests: the patient knows when they'll hear from you, and nobody waits for a result to arrive first.
- 05Track every test until its result lands: the clinician who orders a test is responsible for acting on it.
- 06Start with forms and uploads, then connect: a direct connection to each provider is worth building once its system is confirmed and your volume justifies it.
What does the full pathway look like?
Most steps in a specialist pathway happen on a screen. The steps that don't are the ones where a partner takes over.
| Step | Where it happens | Who does it |
|---|---|---|
| First consultation | Video call from the patient's home | Your clinician |
| Tests requested | The patient's record | Your clinician |
| Blood sample taken | At home, or at a nearby clinic | Your blood testing provider |
| Bone density scan | A scan centre near the patient | Your imaging provider |
| Results reviewed | The patient's record | Your clinician |
| Results call | Video call | Your clinician |
| Prescription issued | The patient's record | Your prescriber |
| Medicine delivered | The patient's home | Your dispensing pharmacy |
Every time a partner takes over, the patient can drop out, a result can go missing, or a prescription can stall. A good virtual clinic treats those handoffs as part of the clinic. Somebody has decided, before the first patient, who does each step and how the clinic knows it happened.
Which 2 questions rule out most test providers?
There are dozens of blood test and scan providers in the UK, and most look suitable on their websites. When we compared more than 20 of them for a specialist clinic, 2 questions ruled most of them out:
- Can the patient pay the provider directly? If the clinic has to buy every test and recharge the patient, it carries the cost and the admin, and refunds become its problem.
- Does the result come back to the clinician who requested it? Many consumer testing services send results to the patient, with their own doctor's comments. That's no use to a clinic that has to act on the result.
A provider that answers yes to both lets the patient pay for exactly what they need, and puts the result where the clinical responsibility sits. Ask both questions before anything else.
How do patients get their blood taken?
Most clinics end up using more than one method, chosen by test and by patient.
| Method | Best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Finger-prick kit posted to the patient | Simple panels, patients anywhere, lowest cost | Not every test works on a small sample, and older patients often struggle to collect enough |
| Nurse home visit | Older or less mobile patients, tests that need a venous sample | Costs more, and availability varies by area |
| Partner collection clinic | A full blood draw and a wide test menu | The patient has to travel, so coverage near your patients matters |
| Point-of-care test | A result within minutes during a face-to-face appointment | Only a handful of tests, and it needs somewhere physical |
Point of care or laboratory?
Point-of-care tests give an answer while the patient is still with you, which is useful when one exists for the test you need. For most specialist work-ups, though, the tests only run in a laboratory. A bone health work-up, for example, might include a bone profile, vitamin D, kidney function, a full blood count, parathyroid hormone, phosphate, and bone turnover markers. Your clinical protocol decides the list.
Before launch, check whether any of your tests can be done at the point of care, then agree the rest, and the price of each, with your laboratory partner.
Check coverage before you promise "anywhere in the UK"
Collection networks look national on a map, but collection points cluster in towns and cities and thin out in rural areas. A 2-hour round trip to a collection clinic is a real barrier for somebody who no longer drives, and a nurse visit is often what keeps an older patient on the pathway. Check coverage against where your patients live before you write "UK-wide" on your website.
Check what your registration covers
Whoever carries out a procedure needs the right registration for it. In England, taking blood samples that are sent to a laboratory can fall under the Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulated activity of diagnostic and screening procedures. When a partner's nurse takes the sample and the partner's laboratory tests it, that partner covers its own part. If your own staff will take samples, check with the CQC whether your registration needs to include it.
How do referrals for scans work?
A scan means referring the patient to an imaging provider. Some providers run their own centres, and others book private scans across a network of independent centres and private hospitals, which suits a clinic with patients all over the country.
X-rays and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scans, which measure bone density, use ionising radiation. That puts them under the Ionising Radiation (Medical Exposure) Regulations 2017, known as IR(ME)R. Under IR(ME)R, the person referring the patient must be a registered healthcare professional who is entitled to refer under the imaging provider's own procedures.
In practice, the imaging provider decides whether to accept your referrals, from which of your clinicians, and for which scans. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) doesn't use ionising radiation, but MRI providers still set referral criteria and screen every patient for pacemakers, metal implants, and other safety risks.
What to agree with each imaging provider
- Who can refer, and for which scans.
- How you refer, through the provider's portal for clinicians or a direct connection to your system.
- Who books, whether the provider emails the patient to choose a centre, or the patient books with a reference.
- Who pays, ideally the patient, directly to the provider.
- How the report comes back, to a named clinician, in a format you can file to the patient's record.
- Which centres are nearest your patients, and how long the appointment and the report usually take.
How do results come back without getting lost?
The clinician who orders a test is responsible for acting on the result. In a virtual clinic, results can come from a laboratory, an imaging provider, and the patient uploading an earlier scan, and a single missing report is easy to overlook.
- File every result to the patient's record, not to somebody's inbox, with an alert to the clinician when it arrives.
- Keep a list of tests still waiting, so a result that's overdue gets chased.
- Have a reachable clinician for urgent results. Laboratories phone the requesting clinician when a result needs action the same day, so somebody has to answer.
- Store readings as data, such as vitamin D and bone density scores, so you can see them change from one test to the next.
- Let the patient see results once you've reviewed them, with an explanation, rather than raw numbers first.
Book the results call when you request the tests
One small step makes a big difference: book the results appointment at the same time as the tests. The patient leaves the first consultation knowing when the blood test is, when the scan is, and when they'll hear from you. Nobody has to remember to book a follow-up once a result lands, and the patient doesn't spend 2 weeks wondering.
Email, portal, or a direct connection?
How requests and results move between your system and each provider depends on what the provider supports and how much testing you do.
| Route | How it works | Good enough when |
|---|---|---|
| Forms and email | Requests go as forms, and reports are uploaded to the patient's record | You're launching, or a provider has no connection yet |
| Provider's portal | You refer and download reports through the provider's own website | You use the provider most days |
| Direct connection | Requests go from your record, and results arrive in it by themselves | Testing is central to every pathway you run |
Some blood testing and imaging providers offer an application programming interface (API) for ordering and results. Others don't, or only for some tests and scans. Ask each provider to confirm how its system connects, and agree it on a 3-way call between your clinic, the provider, and whoever builds your system. Until a connection is live, requests can go as forms and results can be uploaded, so the clinic can still launch on time.
How does the prescription reach the patient?
Once the results are in and the follow-up call is done, the prescriber issues the prescription from the patient's record, with their PIN and signature. It goes to a dispensing pharmacy that delivers across the UK, which dispenses and posts the medicine to the patient's home.
Three things make this step work:
- Agree your prescribing requirements early. Introduce yourself to the pharmacy in the first week, with the treatments you'll prescribe and how.
- Let the patient follow it. A status the patient can see, from issued to delivered, saves a lot of phone calls.
- Send a test prescription before launch. Run one through the pharmacy before a real patient depends on it.
The dispensing models for online clinics are covered in more depth in how to start an online clinic in the UK.
Build your clinic's pathway on Clinic Pro
Clinic Pro builds the system the whole pathway runs through, from the first booking to the medicine at the door.
- Test requests from the record, with results and scan reports filed to the patient and readings tracked over time.
- Introductions to blood test and scan providers that let patients pay directly and send results back to you, with a call with each.
- Direct connections quoted once each provider has confirmed how its system connects, with forms and uploads until then.
- Prescribing with your PIN and signature, sent to our dispensing partner for delivery across the UK.
- A patient portal where patients and their families see test forms, appointments, results, and prescription status.
Planning a clinic around tests and treatment at home? See how a virtual clinic launches on Clinic Pro.
Your partners are part of the clinic
Patients don't see where your clinic ends and your partners begin. If the blood test is hard to book, the scan report goes missing, or the medicine is late, it's your clinic that let them down.
Choose test providers that bill the patient and report to you, agree scan referrals before you launch, book the results call with the tests, and track every result until it lands. Then a patient anywhere in the UK gets the whole pathway, not just the video call.
