Jane's Guide Here's all the help you need to use Jane.

Intake Forms

  1. Forms, Surveys, and Ratings
  2. Intake Forms

    3. 28 min read
    Balance Plan Practice Plan Thrive Plan Legacy Plans

Hey there 👋 are you new to Jane and building out your Intake Forms for the first time? If so, we’d love to give you a helping hand with this during your complimentary Account Setup Consultation. Just schedule a day and time that works best for you and let’s tackle this together!

Intake Forms are a versatile tool that can be your ultimate ally in gathering and securely storing crucial information from your clients. Their applications are virtually limitless, ranging from initial Health History Questionnaires for new clients, collecting billing and insurance details, obtaining consent for specific treatments, and more. With Intake Forms by your side, you can streamline your forms and focus on what matters most – providing exceptional care and helping your clients.

Since Intake Forms can be used in so many ways, we’ve created this handy guide to help you make the most of this awesome feature. We’ll walk you through everything you need to know, so you can easily customize Intake Forms to fit your clinic’s needs and make life easier for both you and your clients.

Feel free to jump straight to the section that you need assistance with at the moment, or read the guide from start to finish to become an Intake Forms expert.

How Intake Forms Work

Creating an Intake Form

Previewing an Intake Form

Manually Sending an Intake Form


How Intake Forms Work

Intake Forms are an online electronic form that can apply to your entire clinic, a specific discipline, a specific practitioner, or certain appointment types.

Intake Forms can be sent out when:

  • A client books an appointment through online booking
  • A client books an appointment administratively with a staff member
  • A staff member manually sends it through a Client Profile

❗️ Please note, that an Intake Form is not automatically sent out when a client creates an account through your Online Booking Site nor is it sent out with the Welcome Email. Instead, these forms are only sent out in appointment email notifications when an eligible appointment is booked, or when a staff member manually sends them to the client.

If multiple Intake Forms are triggered upon booking, Jane will combine them into a single form for the client to fill out, simplifying the process. Don’t worry – the completed forms will still be kept separate on the administrative side of Jane to ensure easy organization and prevent any forms from being overlooked. This feature not only enhances the client experience but also maintains efficiency for your clinic.

If the relevant Intake Forms are not completed, Jane will continue to prompt clients to fill them out in all appointment email notifications sent prior to the client’s appointment. Jane will also automatically send an email reminder to clients with an incomplete Intake Form 24 hours before their appointment. This additional reminder helps ensure that all required forms are completed before the scheduled appointment.

Within each Client Profile, you’ll find an Online Intake Forms section. Here, you’ll see all pending and completed Intake Forms listed and you’ll have the option to manually Email or Fill Out an Intake Form for the client.

When you select Fill Out for an Intake Form, you’ll be presented with two options. You can choose to Continue As Staff Member, allowing you to enter the client’s information on their behalf. Alternatively, select Pass Device To Client to load the Intake Form and lock the client out of the rest of Jane, ensuring they can complete the form securely. Once the client completes the Intake Form, the staff member will need to re-enter their password to regain access to Jane’s administrative side. This added layer of security protects confidential client information on your device.


Creating an Intake Form

Looking to really dive in? Check out our Intake Forms Workshop and follow along as we recreate a standard PDF form into a digital Intake Form within Jane!

Any staff member with Full Access can create Intake Forms by navigating to Settings and selecting Forms & Surveys from the left-hand menu. You’ll then hit View Forms on the Intake Forms option and we’re ready to roll.

To create an Intake Form, click on the New Intake Form button in the upper right corner. This will open the New Intake Form page, where you’ll find various tabs containing the different components of an Intake Form.

The tabs of Intake Forms are:

Don’t worry – we’ll guide you through each tab to ensure you understand the information needed.


General Tab

The General tab is where you can customize your Intake Form’s name and set preferences for when and how it should be sent out.

Name

What do you want to call your Intake Form? Clients will see this name when they fill the form out online and administratively this is the name of the form in the Client Profile.

Automatic or Manual

Do you want your Intake Form to be sent automatically when a client books an eligible appointment? Or do you want to send it manually to clients on a case-by-case basis?

❗️ Automatic Intake Forms are tied strictly to appointment bookings. If the Intake Forms is set to Automatically prompt clients who have not completed this form, Jane will include the Intake Form link in the Thanks for Booking confirmation email for the eligible appointment.

🔥 Hot tip! When you’re initially building out your Intake Form, we recommend setting it to Send manually at first, even if you plan to eventually make it automatic. This gives you the grace to be able to complete setting up your Intake Form at your own pace, since you can Save Intake Form at any time without needing to worry about it accidentally automatically getting sent to a client when you haven’t finished setting it up yet.

Require for New & Existing Clients as of this Date

You can require clients to fill out the Intake Form for their first eligible appointment after a specific date, even if they’ve completed the form before.

This setting is also helpful when you’ve created a new Intake Form that you’d like your existing clients to fill out. This can be a bit confusing, so let’s go through an example scenario:

Imagine you’ve created a new Intake Form, or made significant changes to an existing form, that you want all clients to complete at their next eligible booking, whether it’s their first appointment or they’re an existing client. If you don’t use the Require for New & Existing Clients as of this Date setting, your existing clients who’ve already had their first eligible appointment won’t be prompted to complete the new form because Jane recognizes they’ve already booked an eligible appointment in the past.

However, by setting the Require for New & Existing Clients as of this Date to today’s date, Jane will send the Intake Form to those clients when they book their next eligible appointment since it only considers appointments that occurred after the specified date.

Valid For

Here you can set the validity period for the Intake Form.

If clients don’t need to fill out the form again after submission, select Forever. Alternatively, choose a validity duration from the drop-down menu to prompt clients to refill the form after a set period.

To have clients fill out an Intake Form for every appointment, select the shortest validity option of 3 days. Note that if clients book appointments more frequently than every 3 days, Jane won’t prompt them to complete the form for each appointment, but only for the first eligible one after the 3-day validity period.

❗️ When the same Intake Form is sent to a client, it doesn’t override the previously completed form(s) in their Client Profile. Instead, a new saved Intake Form is added each time a client fills it out. You can distinguish between Intake Forms in the Client Profile by checking the Status in the Online Intake Forms section of the Profile tab or referring to the chart entry date for the Intake Form in the Charts tab.

Introduction

This section is a great place to let clients know about the Intake Form’s purpose, including the information they need to provide, why they’re receiving it, and how we’ll use their data. To make things clear and easy to understand, feel free to use markdown formatting and organize your text into paragraphs within the textbox.


Appointment Type Tab

If you set your Intake Form to Automatically prompt clients who have not completed this form, the Appointment Type tab is where you can set the criteria for when Jane should send the form, based on the type of appointment a client books.

All Appointments

This option is useful when you need a “clinic-wide” Intake Form. Whenever a client books their first appointment with the clinic, regardless of the appointment type, they’ll receive this form.

A Specific Discipline

This option is useful when your Intake Form is specific to a particular discipline or modality. Clients who book an appointment in that discipline for the first time will receive this form.

A Specific Staff Member

This option is useful when a practitioner needs a personalized Intake Form for specific information requirements. Clients who book an appointment with this practitioner for the first time will receive this form.

Specific Treatments

This option is useful when you need to send an Intake Form only for specific appointment types. For instance, if you treat both children and adults but the form is relevant only for adult appointments, you can select this option.

Clients who book an appointment out of the selected appointments for the first time will receive this form. If they book another appointment from the selected appointment types after their initial booking, they won’t receive the form again. This ensures that the form is only sent once for each group of selected appointment types.

❗️ Please note that if your Intake Form has a Require for New & Existing Clients as of this Date or Valid For setting enabled, an appointment triggering an Intake Form might not be the client’s first-ever eligible appointment at the clinic. Instead, the Intake Form may have been sent for the first eligible appointment after the specified date or validity period set in these settings.

🔥 Hot Tip! Create a clinic-wide Intake Form (by selecting All Appointments) containing questions relevant to your entire clinic then create smaller, specific Intake Forms for Disciplines, Staff Members, or Treatments with more targeted questions. If multiple Intake Forms get sent when an appointment is booked, Jane will combine them into a single form for your client’s convenience. Just be mindful not to repeat the same questions across different forms.


Profile Fields Tab

The Profile Fields tab lets you customize the Client Profile information you want to gather from clients. You can choose to include specific fields in the Intake Form by selecting Include in Intake and make any field mandatory for clients to complete by checking the corresponding Required checkbox.

Once clients provide the requested information, it will be added to their Profile tab in the Client Profile. Any fields that are already populated in the Client Profile will be pre-filled in the form, allowing clients to either update the information or proceed without changes.

Jane will always request the First Name, Last Name, and Email fields by default. For other fields, you can make them optional by checking only Include in Intake or mandatory by checking both Include in Intake and Required.


Credit Cards

This feature is available for Jane Payments users in Canada** 🇨🇦 **and the US** 🇺🇸**. If you’re not a Jane Payments user yet, you can learn more about Jane Payments and get set up whenever you’re ready!

The Credit Cards tab lets you request clients’ credit card information, which can help reduce no-shows and simplify fee collection when they do occur. Additionally, you and your client can end your session on a healing note, instead of a transactional one.

To enable credit card collection on your Intake Form, use the drop-down menu to update the Gather credit card information on intake form field. You can choose from the following options:

  • Do not ask for credit card: Clients will not be prompted to provide credit card information.
  • Credit card details optional: Clients will be asked for credit card details but can skip this step if they prefer not to provide them.
  • Credit card details required: Clients must provide credit card details to complete the Intake Form. ⚠️ Note: Be aware that this might create a barrier for some clients who are unable or unwilling to provide this information, potentially preventing them from completing the form.

In the Credit Cards tab, you’ll also find text fields where you can provide details on:

  • Why gather credit card information?: Use this field to explain the purpose of collecting credit card information and how it will be used.
  • Cancellation policy: This text appears when your client clicks “Read Cancellation Policy.” ⚠️ Note: If you’ve customized your cancellation policy in Settings > Language, copy and paste it into this box to ensure clients see the correct policy instead of the default text.
  • Declaration: This statement must be agreed upon by your client before submitting the form.

These text fields are pre-populated with default text but feel free to modify them as needed.

Check out our Collect Credit Cards on Intake Forms guide for more details on this feature!


Insurance Information Tab

This feature is available to users who have signed up for Jane’s Insurance Add-On. If you haven’t subscribed to the Insurance Add-On yet, you can do so at any time to take advantage of this feature!

The Insurance Information tab allows you to request insurance details from your clients, streamlining the check-in process and reducing administrative tasks.

To enable insurance information collection on your Intake Form, select the option to Include Insurance Information Step for Form.

Once you choose to Include insurance information, you’ll have additional fields pop up for customization:

  • Insurance Card Image Settings: Enabling this step will allow clients to upload images of their insurance card.
  • Custom Introduction: You can use this field to provide any relevant information about how you work with insurance at your clinic or any other important info for your clients. To make things clear and easy to understand, feel free to use markdown formatting and organize your text into paragraphs within the textbox.

At the bottom of the Insurance Information tab, you’ll find a list of Insurers in your account, which can be managed under Settings > Insurers. To learn more about managing insurers in Jane for Canadian Insurance 🇨🇦 and US Insurance 🇺🇸, please refer to our detailed guides.

In the Insurer section, check the appropriate box to give clients the option to enter insurance information for that Insurer.

In the Insurance Information section, select the insurance Field(s) you want to Include in Intake and mark any field(s) as Required, if necessary.

Once clients provide the requested information, it will be converted into an insurance policy that will need to be administratively reviewed and approved before billing.

Check out our Collect Insurance Information on Intake Forms From Your Clients **guide for more details on this feature!


Questionnaires Tab

The Questionnaires tab is where you’ll build out all your custom questions and information fields for your Intake Form. This ensures that you’re able to collect all the data you need from your clients.

The information collected in the Questionnaires tab will be saved as an independent chart entry in the Charts tab of the Client Profile.

Creating Questionnaires for your Intake Form involves using the same items as building Chart Templates, such as Notes, Check Boxes, and Drop Downs. You can even create Questionnaires as a Chart Template first and then add them to the Intake Form, depending on your preference.

Option 1 - Building Questionnaires From Your Staff Profile

We like this option because using Chart Templates to create Questionnaires offers a couple of advantages. It allows you to share the questionnaire with other Jane accounts if needed and it prevents potential loss of progress if you navigate away or close a window during the creation process.

To begin, go to your Staff Profile > Templates. From there, you can choose between creating your Questionnaire from scratch by clicking New Template or checking out pre-made templates generously shared by other Jane users in the Template Library.

For an in-depth guide on creating a Chart Template, head over to our guide on Chart Templates: Creating, Editing and Deleting a Template.

❗️ Please note that only specific chart items can be added to the Questionnaires section of an Intake Form. Currently, these items include Notes, Signatures, Headings, Check Boxes, Drop Downs, Ranges / Scales, and Instructions. Other chart items, such as Chief Complaint, Vitals, Body Chart, Side-By-Side, Sketch, File / Image, Spine, Smart Options & Narrative, and Optical Measurements, cannot be included in the Intake Form. If you include these items in your Chart Template, they will be automatically removed when you add the template to the Questionnaires tab of the Intake Form.

Here are the chart items that can be added to the Questionnaires tab of an Intake Form:

Once you’ve built out the Chart Template for your Questionnaires, head back to the Questionnaires tab of the Intake Form. In the Intake Questionnaires section, hit the blue square grid button next to Add Item.

In the panel that pops up, select the Templates tab and you’ll pull up a list of your clinic’s Chart Templates. Select your desired Chart Template to add to the Questionnaires of your Intake Form and you’re all set!

Option 2 - Building Questionnaires Directly in the Intake Form

If you prefer, you can choose to create your Questionnaire directly within your Intake Form.

In the Questionnaires tab, you can use the blue square grid button to pull up a full menu of Items, Templates, and the Template Library.

You also have an Add Item drop-down menu to quickly add a chart Item or a Chart Template from your clinic.

🔥 Hot tip! When you add a Chart Template or a template from the Template Library to your Questionnaires, you have the option to customize any of the items within the template to suit your specific requirements for the Intake Form.

Once you have items added to your Questionnaires, you can hover your mouse over an item and click the three dots that pop up to bring up a menu of different actions associated with that item.

  • Trash can: Delete the item.
  • Pencil: Edit the item.
  • Overlapping squares: Duplicate the item.
  • Up arrow: Move the item up in the template.
  • Down arrow: Move the item down in the template.
  • Plus sign: Add an additional item.

When you select the pencil to pull up the Edit Item pop-up, depending on the item that you are editing different options will be presented to you but in general, you’ll be able to edit the Label of the item and then add any standard text needed.

Some items will also have toggles for different item settings:

  • Include Notes: Add a note box after each item (ex. checkboxes, drop-down menus) to allow your client to provide additional information.
  • Hide unused fields after signing: Any option that wasn’t selected by the client won’t appear in the chart entry generated by the Intake Form.
  • Required: The item must be filled out for the client to complete the Intake Form.


Consents Tab

The Consents tab allows you to add any necessary consents that clients must acknowledge. We provide a few standard consents to get you started, including Accuracy of Information, Privacy and Sharing of Information, and Cancellation Policy. Feel free to modify, remove, or add to these consents based on your clinic’s requirements.

❗️ One of the default consents is a Cancellation Policy, but if you’ve customized your cancellation policy in Settings > Language, copy and paste it into the Text of the Consent to ensure clients see the correct policy instead of the default text.

Require Signature

You’ll first be asked if you want to Require Signature for your Intake Form. If selected, clients must either draw or type their signature electronically to submit the form successfully.

We have a handy guide on Requiring a Signature that covers how to enable this feature, what your clients will experience, and helpful tips for managing Intake Forms for clients who may have already completed or started their forms before you you had a chance to enable this feature.

Next, you’ll have the option to customize the Consents themselves, which consist of four different fields: Name, Text, Type, and, if applicable, Agree Declaration and Disagree Declaration.

Name

The Name field represents the title of the consent and is a required field.

Text

The Text field can be used to add further details about the consent if needed. It 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.

Type

The Type field lets you select the type of acknowledgment a client can make for the consent.

You have three options to choose from:

  • Must Agree: The client must select the Agree Declaration statement.
  • Agree or Disagree: The client can select either the Agree Declaration statement or the Disagree Declaration statement.
  • Acknowledge with Initials: The client must enter their initials to acknowledge the consent.

Agree Declaration and Disagree Declaration

These fields will only appear if you have selected Must Agree or Agree or Disagree as the Type for your consent.

The text in these fields will be presented as checkbox options for clients to select when acknowledging the consent.

Within the Consents tab, you can remove a consent by clicking Remove Consent or add another consent by selecting Add Consent. Use these options to tailor your Intake Form to your specific needs.

🔥 Hot tip! Some clinics opt to create a dedicated Intake Form for Consents, making it applicable to All Appointments which ensures that the Intake Form is sent to clients when they book their first appointment. If your clinic has numerous Intake Forms, this approach can simplify the process of updating clinic-wide Consents as you’ll only need to update one Intake Form, rather than every one in your account. Remember, is multiple Intake Forms are triggered by an appointment booking they will be combined into a single form for clients, so they can easily complete the Consents even if they’re on a separate Intake Form.

Congratulations, you’ve completed all the tabs in the New Intake Form workflow! ⭐️ Don’t forget to click Save Intake Form to save your hard work, and give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back for a job well done.


Previewing an Intake Form

After creating your Intake Form, you may want to view a preview of how it will appear to your clients. To do this, navigate back to the Intake Forms page and click the Preview button next to your new form. This will allow you to double-check that everything looks as expected.

🔥 Hot tip! Although Intake Forms are designed for electronic completion, it may be useful to have paper copies available for clients who prefer to fill them out in person. To print a copy, use the Preview option and right-click on the page, then select Print. Just keep in mind that some features, like Drop Downs, won’t work on paper, so you may choose to create a separate, print-friendly version of the Intake Form outside of Jane.


Manually Sending an Intake Form

If you have set your Intake Form to Send manually, you may be wondering how to send the form to a client. Don’t worry; it’s a simple process! Just navigate to the Client Profile, scroll down to the Online Intake Forms section, and select the Email option. Then, click Send Now or Add Message… to add a custom note to the Intake Form email.

Well, there you have it, folks! You’ve reached the end of this Intake Forms adventure. Armed with your newfound knowledge and the power of efficient Intake Forms, go forth and conquer the world of client management (or at least make your life a little easier). Cheers to streamlined workflows, organized data, and happier clients 🌟😄 Happy form-building!

If you’d like to learn more about Intake Forms or have any questions, check out our Intake Form FAQs and My Patient Didn’t Receive Their Intake Form: A Troubleshooting Guide. You’re always welcome to chat with us too!
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter.