Client Management

How to Set Up Digital Intake Forms for Health Practitioners

Digital intake forms replace paper questionnaires and consent forms by sending clients a link to complete before their appointment. In Bella Booking, you can build custom forms with 8 field types, require e-signatures, attach forms to specific services, and control whether they're sent every visit or just once.

Start free trial View pricing

Why digital intake forms matter for practitioners

Paper intake forms are a liability in health and wellness practices. They get lost, they're hard to search when a client returns months later, and they eat into appointment time when completed on arrival.

Clients complete forms on their phone before arriving — no clipboard delays at reception
All responses are stored digitally against the client profile for easy reference on return visits
E-signatures on consent forms create a clear record of informed consent
Forms are sent automatically when a client books — no manual follow-up needed
Standardised fields ensure every team member collects the same information

Digital forms are particularly important for physio, chiro, osteo, and skin clinic practitioners who need documented consent before treatment and consistent intake data across clients.

Available field types

Bella Booking's form builder supports 8 field types that cover most intake, consent, and questionnaire requirements:

Field type	Best for
Text (short)	Names, addresses, referral sources, brief answers
Textarea (long)	Medical history, current symptoms, additional notes
Email	Contact email with format validation
Phone	Contact number with format validation
Checkbox	Multiple-select options: conditions, medications, consent acknowledgements
Radio buttons	Single-select: yes/no questions, pain scales, frequency
Dropdown	Single-select from longer lists: referring practitioner, how they heard about you
Date	Date of birth, injury date, last treatment date

Fields can be grouped into named sections (e.g., "Personal Details", "Medical History", "Consent") for logical organisation. Each field can be marked as required or optional.

Setting up forms for common practitioner scenarios

Physiotherapy intake

Create sections for personal details, medical history, current complaint, pain location and severity (radio buttons for scale), previous treatments, and medications. Add a consent section with e-signature for treatment acknowledgement. Attach to your "Initial Assessment" service and set frequency to "once" — the form won't be re-sent for follow-up appointments.

Chiropractic new patient form

Include sections for demographics, health history, spinal history, current symptoms, and imaging history. Use checkboxes for "conditions you currently have" and "conditions that run in your family". Add an informed consent declaration with e-signature. Attach to your initial consultation service.

Skin clinic consent form

For skin treatments (laser, IPL, chemical peels), create a form with contraindication screening (medications, sun exposure, pregnancy), treatment-specific risks acknowledgement, and e-signature. Set frequency to "every time" so consent is re-confirmed before each treatment session.

Osteopathy / acupuncture intake

Similar structure to physiotherapy: personal details, medical history, current complaint, and consent. Add specific fields relevant to your modality — e.g., needle phobia screening for acupuncture, or birth history for paediatric osteopathy.

How automatic form delivery works

1Create your form in Bella Booking's form builder with the relevant fields and sections
2Attach the form to specific services (e.g., attach your intake form to "Initial Assessment")
3Set the frequency: "once" for intake forms that only need to be completed on the first visit, or "every time" for per-session consent forms
4When a client books a service with an attached form, they receive a link to complete it before their appointment
5Completed forms are linked to the appointment and stored against the client profile
6View all form submissions from the client's profile — searchable and timestamped

For clients who book by phone or walk in, you can manually send the form link from their client profile. The form doesn't require an online booking to be triggered.

E-signatures and consent

E-signatures are essential for consent forms in health and wellness practices. Adding a signature field to your form creates a legally meaningful record that the client acknowledged and accepted the treatment terms, risks, and conditions.

Add a signature field at the end of your consent section
Include clear consent text above the signature explaining what the client is agreeing to
Signed forms are stored with a timestamp against the client record
Previous submissions can be reviewed at any time from the client profile

Bella Booking's forms with e-signatures provide a digital record of consent, but they are not a substitute for professional legal advice about your specific consent requirements. Check your professional body's guidelines (e.g., APA for physios, AHPRA registration requirements) for minimum consent documentation standards.

Limitations of Bella's forms

Bella's form builder covers standard intake and consent scenarios but has limitations compared to dedicated clinical form platforms:

No conditional logic (fields cannot show/hide based on previous answers)
No body diagram or pain location markup tools
Form fields are not pre-populated from existing client data
No integration with external form platforms — forms are built within Bella
No clinical scoring (e.g., Oswestry, DASH, NPRS auto-calculation)
Forms are not structured clinical records — they store responses as submitted text

If you need conditional logic, body diagrams, or clinical outcome scoring, you'll need a dedicated clinical system. Bella's forms work well for standard intake questionnaires, consent declarations, and health history collection.