Intake Forms
Intake forms are the questionnaires, consents, and health-history documents a client completes before their first visit. Setting them up here means the information (and the signed consents) is waiting on the client's record when a provider opens it — no clipboard, no chasing paperwork on the day.
You'll build each form once, then decide when it's required — either before a client can book a specific service, or as part of the onboarding flow every new client goes through.
Instead of building a form by hand, describe it to Atlas and it will draft it for you to approve:
- Create a form — "Create a New Patient intake form with: full name (text), date of birth (date), reason for visit (long text), do you have insurance? (yes/no)". Atlas needs a title and the questions (each with a label and an answer type).
- Require a form — "Require the New Patient form at onboarding" / "Turn on client onboarding". Atlas needs which forms to require, and whether onboarding is on.
Say "Atlas, create an intake form for new clients" and it will draft the questions and consents for you to review, so you're editing a starting point instead of building from a blank page.
A. Build a form
A form is a set of fields grouped into sections. Start simple — a single intake questionnaire — and add consents and policies as separate forms once the basics work.
Go to Settings → Forms → New Form, give it a clear name (this is what the client sees, so "New Client Intake" beats "Form 1"), and add your fields. Each field is one question, and the field type controls how the client answers:
- Short text / long text for names, notes, and history.
- Multiple choice / checkboxes for structured answers you can scan quickly.
- Date for things like date of birth or symptom onset.
- Signature / consent for anything the client needs to agree to — this captures a legally meaningful acknowledgment, not just a checkbox.
- File upload for a photo of an insurance card or a referral letter.
For a longer intake, group related fields into sections (health history, consents, policies) so the form doesn't read as one endless list.
B. Require a form before booking or at onboarding
A form only helps if it's completed at the right moment. Ready Practice gives you two triggers, and you can use both:
- Required for a service — attach the form to a service, and a client must complete it before they can book that service the first time. Use this for service-specific intakes (for example, a health-history form required before an initial consult).
- Part of onboarding — attach the form to the onboarding flow, and every new client completes it when they're invited, before they ever book. Use this for the forms everyone needs (general intake, practice policies, consents).
You set the service requirement on the service itself; you set the onboarding forms under Settings → Onboarding.
When a client submits a form, you capture their answers as of that moment. Editing the form later changes it for future clients — it doesn't alter or erase a submission a client already made.
Send a form to one client
Some forms only apply to some clients — a consent for an add-on treatment, a waiver for one service, a questionnaire a provider wants mid-plan. You don't have to wait for a booking to send them: Send a form sends any form in your library to one client, whenever it becomes relevant.
- Open the client and click Send a form. It's on the Documents tab next to Upload document, in the Onboarding box on the client's Summary, and next to the client's name in the appointment drawer on the Calendar. A list of every form in your library opens, each marked with where this client stands on it — Completed with the date, Sent with the date, or Pending.
- Tick the form or forms to send.
- Click Email to client to email them one message with a link to each form, or click Fill in now (one form at a time) to open the form on your own device so the client can fill it in and sign before they leave the room.
A sent form is pending on the client's profile until they submit it, appears as a task in their app and portal, and is recorded in the activity log with your name. Clicking Email to client twice by mistake doesn't send a second email. The same is true of the welcome and onboarding emails: resending either to a client again within a minute doesn't send a second copy. Sending a form from its row in Settings → Forms sends only that form.
If you tick a form the client has already completed, the window says so before you send. Sending it again asks the client for a new signed version: their link opens straight on the form rather than the "already completed" page, and the earlier submission and its PDF stay on file. Nothing the client signed before is overwritten.
On a form with a signature, a field labelled Date (or Date signed, Today's date, Guardian signature date) shows today's date and can't be changed, and the date is recorded when the form is submitted. Other date fields, such as a date of injury, stay editable.
C. Review submissions
Once a client submits, their completed form appears on their profile for the provider to read before the visit. There's nothing to file — it's already attached to the right client.
A form link belongs to one client and keeps working after they submit, but opening it again no longer shows a blank form. The client sees a page saying the form is complete and when it was submitted, with one button, Submit a new version, for when something has genuinely changed. Choosing it opens the form with their previous answers already filled in, apart from any signature, which must be signed again. The new version replaces the old one on the profile, and the earlier submission and its PDF are kept on file, so a resubmitted form shows Resubmitted · 2 versions on file on the profile and the record shows the change. Forwarding one client's link to other people still does not work: anyone opening it sees that client's completion page, and a new version they submit would land on that client.
Until a form is submitted it counts as pending: the client's profile shows it under Onboarding with an amber marker, the appointment drawer on the Calendar shows a pending forms badge, and the client's appointments carry a small flag in the schedule. Two situations make that badge wrong, and both have a fix on the spot. A client who completed their paperwork elsewhere — on paper, or before you moved to Ready Practice — gets Mark done, which records the form as complete with your name against it. A client who simply does not need a particular form gets Dismiss, which takes it out of the pending count without pretending it was filled in. Both live on each form's row under Onboarding on the profile, and the badge in the appointment drawer opens the same list so you can clear it from the calendar. A form you marked done or dismissed shows Reopen if you change your mind; a form the client actually submitted cannot be reopened.
A client list you imported gets every required form assigned, because Ready Practice cannot know what they signed before. If your imported clients completed intake elsewhere, dismissing or marking done from the profile is the way to clear the badge — sending them the forms again is not.
Your intake-forms checklist
- Your core intake form is built with the fields you need
- Consents and policies added (as their own forms)
- Forms attached to the right services and/or the onboarding flow
- A test client has completed the flow end to end so you've seen what they see
Next steps
- Insurance & Billing → — set up payers and claims (skip if you're cash-pay).