Collect intake and consent forms before the first visit

With RafaNest you can build intake and consent forms once, send them to new patients automatically, and have the answers waiting before the first visit. Patients fill the forms out online and can sign them with a drawn or typed signature, so there is no clipboard and no retyping. Digital forms are part of the Professional plan.

Build a form, or start from a template

Open Forms under Schedule and Services. You can start from a ready-made template or build from scratch. The starter templates cover the paperwork most practices need.

• New patient intake, medical history and pre-visit symptom check
• Treatment consent, telehealth consent and HIPAA privacy acknowledgment
• Insurance information
• Physical therapy and acupuncture or Chinese medicine intake
• A clinical assessment form for your own use, which patients never see

Templates are a starting point. Read them against your own practice, and have your licensing board guidance or a lawyer check consent wording before you rely on it. For ideas on what to ask, see what to include in a therapy intake form.

Choose the right fields

The builder supports short text, long text, number, date, email and phone fields, dropdowns, radio buttons, checkboxes, a rating scale, and a signature field. You can mark fields as required, set how wide each one is on the page, and add a rule so that a field appears only when an earlier answer matches. For example, a question about your current medication can show only when the client answers yes to taking any.

Send forms to new patients automatically

In Settings, the Intake form section lets you pick one form to send whenever a new patient record is created. The patient receives an invitation with a link. Intake form invitations go by email unless the patient has turned on texts for them, and the automatic send is skipped when the patient record has no contact detail for the channel you chose, so collect an email address at booking. Channels and consent are explained in our guide to notifications and reminders.

Send a form whenever you need one

From the Forms page you can send any form to an existing patient, or assign it to them without sending a message. You can also email a form to someone who is not a patient yet, such as a prospective client, and they can complete it from the link. Forms marked internal are for your own staff, and an internal form cannot be emailed to someone who is not a patient. When you send a form to a patient who has no portal login, RafaNest links them straight to the form page.

How patients fill them out

• The form opens in a normal web browser, on a phone, tablet or computer.
• Required fields must be completed before the form can be submitted.
• A signature field lets the patient draw with a finger or mouse, or type their full name instead.
• A patient who is signed in has the submission linked to their record. Someone using the public form link enters their name and email with their answers.

Review answers before the visit

Submissions appear on the Forms page, so you can read the answers before the session and prepare. Keep your own clinical assessment on a separate internal form, so the patient answers and your clinical notes stay apart.

Less front-desk work, fewer errors

Moving intake online removes the clipboard shuffle and the manual data entry that follows it, and patients arrive with the paperwork done. To set up the rest of your booking rules, see the clinic settings guide.