What are intake forms?
Intake forms serve to gather the patient's important and necessary information so you can begin treating them. These intake forms can be specific to your practice or generally used by more than one type of practitioner.
You should ideally send these forms at the beginning of your relationship with the client, as soon as they decide to book an appointment with you; however, Carepatron allows you to send them at any point in your relationship's timeline.
Learn more about creating intake forms by clicking here.
Sending intake for the first time
Once you have created a client, you can send them an intake. When sending an intake form, ensure it is fillable so your client can complete the form. You can create a fillable form by adding fillable fields. Learn more about fillable fields here. To do this:
Navigate to the Client page.
Go into the Client Record.
Select the more action button in the upper right corner.
Select Send intake.
To improve the intake process, sending an intake is now split into two focused steps.
Choose forms and agreements: Choose the forms and agreements to send, and collect the payment method. To use the Capture payment method option, make sure your Stripe account is set up.
The new template selector helps you quickly find and choose the right forms:Tabbed view: Browse by Folders or Templates.
Search: Find a specific form in seconds.
Folder selection: Choose an entire folder, and all templates inside are included automatically.
Default intake folder: Pre-selected when you open the modal, so common sends are ready with no setup.
Compose email: Preview the email before sending to the client. You can edit both the subject and body as needed to ensure it’s just right.
Click Send.
You can also send them from within the client list by selecting the Intake icon on the toolbar, which appears at the far right when hovering over a client's profile.
Note: On mobile, before sending the intake, tap Preview to see the full email.
Client processes when they receive the document
Once you send the intake form, your client will receive the fillable form in their email. Here are the steps they will go through. You can't customize the steps during this process; it's set by default.
Click on the link provided in the email. This will take your patient to an invitation page on Carepatron.
They need to complete the steps to fill out the form.
For forms and agreements, your client can complete the intake forms you sent them. You can also send viewable documents that do not require to be sent out (e.g., terms and conditions, compliance, etc.)
If you want your clients to respond to the form, make sure it's fillable by adding fillable fields.
Important reminder:
Intake forms are valid for 30 days from the date they’re sent. If the link expires, you'll need to issue a new one for your client.
There isn’t a way to see a list of everyone you’ve sent intake forms to in one place within the platform. The only option for now is to open each client’s record individually and check under their Documentation tab to confirm what has been shared with them.
Client portal invitations don’t have an expiration limit, allowing clients to access them at any time.
If you or the clients experience an unexpected error message when completing the form, log out of any Carepatron account you're currently signed into, then open the intake form link again (preferably in an incognito/private browser window).
If patients are having trouble filling out forms despite you having set it to Responder mode, such as being unable to type in fields or select responses, one thing to try is directing them to click the eye icon in the upper right corner of the form rather than See more, as this ensures the form opens in the correct view.
Our team will be available to answer any further questions you may have. Just reply via messenger through the Help channel in your workspace.