Collecting and storing client consent is a crucial step for many practices so we’ve put together this guide to show you how Intake Forms can make the consent process easier and more efficient! ✍️
💡For an in-depth resource on creating Intake Forms, check out our Intake Forms guide. It covers each section of the form setup, along with useful tips, so it’s a great place to start. This guide, however, focuses specifically on using Intake Forms to manage client consent, with a focus on the setup options for those types of Intake Forms specifically. Both resources will help you master Intake Forms in no time!
Want to skip to the section you need? Go for it! Or you can keep reading to learn everything about setting up consents:
- Automatic or Manual Consent Forms?
- Building Consents in the Questionnaires or the Consents Tab?
- Requiring Signature for Consents
Automatic or Manual Consent Forms?
When creating an Intake Form, you’ll first choose whether you’d like the form to be Automatic or Manual. This tells Jane whether to send the form automatically to clients upon booking an applicable appointment or manually by a staff member from the Client Profile.
Choosing between automatic and manual depends on your practice’s needs and the purpose of your Intake Form. Opt for automatic sending if you want clients to receive the form immediately at the time of booking. Alternatively, choose manual sending if you prefer to control when the form is sent from the Client Profile.
Automatic Intake Form Example
A perfect example of an automatic Intake Form would be in the Medical Aesthetic field. For instance, a Botox appointment typically requires specific consent for injectable treatments, which would apply to every Botox appointment a client books. In such cases, an automatic form ensures that consent is obtained consistently and efficiently.
By selecting Automatically prompt clients who have not completed this form and linking it to all injectable appointments under the Appointment Type tab, you can ensure that clients receive the necessary form each time they book an appointment.
Under the General tab, you can set the Valid for option to 3 days. This ensures that Jane sends a new Intake Form for each applicable injectable appointment, as long as it’s booked more than 3 days after the client’s most recent appointment.
Manual Intake Form Example
A great example of when an Intake Form would likely work best as a manual form is in the event of obtaining consent to share or release a client’s information with a third party. For example, if a lawyer is requesting charts for a client, you may require the client to sign a release form that verifies that they are authorizing you to share that confidential data with the lawyer.
By selecting Send manually, you’re able to select what clients to send this form to so that these requests can be handled as they arise.
Building Consents in the Questionnaires or the Consents Tab?
When setting up your Intake Form, you’ll find two different sections for creating consents. Each section has its own set of features, so you can pick the one that works best for your clinic’s needs.
Option 1: Using the Consents Section
By building your form in the Consents section, Jane will generate a hyperlink on the patient’s profile. Clicking on this link will allow you to access and review the form as needed.
🔥 Hot tip! This option is best suited for written consent where the client needs to simply agree, disagree, or acknowledge the consent.
Default Consents
In the Consents tab, Jane offers several pre-built, commonly used consents for clinics, including agreements on the accuracy of information, privacy and sharing policies, and cancellation policies. These default options can save you time and effort in creating these common consents; however, they can also be easily removed by hitting Remove Consent if they are not needed.
Creating Consents
The Consents section is perfect for managing long-written text, like the kind you’d find in typical consent forms.
You’ve got some flexibility here! You can either add your entire consent to one single consent, or you can split it up into multiple sections with different names. This lets clients acknowledge each section of text one by one, if that’s what you prefer.
The Text textbox also includes formatting tools like bold, italics, underline, hyperlinks, bullet points, and numbered lists, which can improve the readability of the content for your clients, especially if there’s a lot of information. To use these tools, highlight the text you wish to format for a menu to appear.
Consents Example
If you’re curious about what consents built in the Consents tab look like to clients, check out our example below:
Option 2: Using the Questionnaires Section
Choosing to create the form in the Questionnaires section allows Jane to store the patient’s response directly within their chart. However, you can still access the complete form from the patient’s profile if needed.
🔥 Hot tip! This option is best suited for situations where you are providing your clients with options to select from for the consent. For example, if they are provided with an a, b, c, and/or d option to pick from.
Creating Questionnaires
In the Questionnaires tab, there are items such as Check Boxes, Drop Down, Range / Scale, etc. which allow you to build out different options for clients to select.
You can add as many chart items as you need for each question that you would like included in your form.
For an in-depth breakdown of each item that can be used, our Intake Forms guide has a whole section dedicated to Questionnaires.
❗️Heads up! While the Instruction item may seem like a great way to include long-written text in your form, keep in mind that it may not be the best choice for consents. The reason is that any text you include in an Instruction won’t show up when you export or print charts, so you might want to think twice before using it for consents. Just a heads up as you’re putting your form together.
❗️Heads up! You might also think about using the Note item for long-written text, since it has a textbox that can hold a ton of info. But keep in mind that the textbox below the Label textbox can be changed by your clients when they’re filling out the form. This means that if you use the Note item for your consents, your clients could accidentally change the text you’ve put in there. Not ideal, right? So, just a heads-up to consider when using the Note item.
Questionnaires Example
If you’re curious about what consents built in the Questionnaires tab look like to clients, check out our example below:
Requiring Signature for Consents
Whether you choose to build out your form in Consents or Questionnaires, both sections can require a signature.
Option 1: Requiring signatures in the Consents section
Within the Consents tab, there is a simple Require Signature check box that can be used.
To learn more about this setting, feel free to check out our Require Signature Setting guide.
Option 2: Requiring signatures in the Questionnaires section
Within the Questionnaires tab, when you Add Item there is an option to use a Signature item which can be added at any point throughout the form.
When a Signature item is added, you can make the signature mandatory by clicking the three dots and then the pencil to edit.
From there, you can simply slide the toggle for Required and Save.
That’s a wrap on our guide to consents! We hope this information helps you create the perfect consent forms for your practice.
As always, we’re here to help, so don’t hesitate to Contact Us if you have any questions or need assistance with setting up your consents. Happy form-building! 📝