Automatically Send Forms (Appointment Booked, Pre-Appointment, Post-Appointment)
Healthie enables providers to automatically and electronically collect health information, e-signatures, payment details (including payment cards and insurance information), and other customizable forms directly from clients via our Intake Forms feature.
There are two ways to trigger forms to be sent automatically to your clients:
- Create an Intake Flow that sends to clients once they are added to a certain Group: This is used to create an onboarding flow for new clients, where a series of forms are requested (ie. HIPAA Agreement, Billing form, Financial Policies and waivers, etc).
- Trigger a form to send after a specific session is booked, pre-session, and post-session occurrence. We recommend using this workflow if there are particular form(s) that you'd like a client to complete, such as a testimonial release form, pre-session survey, or post-session survey. Every time this session is booked or completed, a blank version of the form will send to the client to complete.
In this article, we'll walk through point 2, how to automatically request and schedule forms to send after a session has been booked, before a session occurs, and/or after a session has occurred.
Separately, Healthie also offers the ability to send out forms on an "ad hoc" basis. Here is more information on how to request a form completion.
Scheduling a Form to send After-Booking or After-Appointment
Scheduling forms to send post-booking, pre-session, and/or post-session can enhance your workflow by reducing the amount of manual work required to collect relevant information. Moreover, there may be instances in which you want to collect specific information surrounding a specific appointment type (e.g., a COVID-19 waiver before an in-person session, a post-appointment satisfaction survey, a consent form for a specific appointment, or something else).
To enable a post-booking or post-session:
- Navigate to Settings (gear icon) > Calendar > Appointment Types
- Locate your Appointment Type > Click the Actions tab (three dots) > Edit
From the "Edit" screen of your Appointment Type, you'll see two ways to "Schedule Content" related to this session:
- After Booking: This automation will trigger an email request to complete form(s) at a pre-set time interval after the provider OR client books this appointment. Forms here can be specific to the appointment type, and can be used to collect additional information outside of an intake flow. For example, you offer a group appointment and want any enrolled participants to complete a Virtual Group Consent form.
- Before Appointment: This automation will trigger an email request to complete form(s) at a pre-set time interval BEFORE appointment start time.
- After Appointment: Scheduling content here would trigger an email request to complete form(s) at a pre-set time interval AFTER the you have first marked the client as having attended and the appointment has been marked as "Occurred" from your calendar. This automation could, for example, be used to send out a patient satisfaction survey or testimonial release form.
- Note: If you do this in reverse order (mark the appointment as "Occurred" first and then mark the client as having attended), the request isn’t triggered. The proper steps are are follows:
- Navigate to the group appointment on your calendar
- Open its details and click track attendance
- Mark all relevant clients as having attended and "Save"
- Update the appointment’s status to "Occurred"
- Note: If you do this in reverse order (mark the appointment as "Occurred" first and then mark the client as having attended), the request isn’t triggered. The proper steps are are follows:
To schedule a form:
- To add a form, select "Schedule" next to the option you prefer. You can trigger scheduled content/forms to send after booking an appointment, before an appointment occurs, AND after the appointment is marked as occurred. Multiple forms can be added here as well.
- Find your form in the drop-down list and click on "Schedule"
Note: A scheduled form won't send if the client already has the same form Not Started, Incomplete or Open. In order to override this, and have a scheduled form send anyway before every appointment, even if the client has a previous version Incomplete, you can remove previously Incomplete forms from the client's account so that new ones can be scheduled and sent automatically.
Repeat the steps above if you'd like to schedule multiple post-session forms. As a reminder, the form itself does not send, but clients will receive an email requesting them to complete the form. This email will prompt them to sign into their Healthie Client Portal, and complete the requested paperwork. Additionally, the form will not send until you have marked the appointment as "Occurred" in your Healthie calendar.
You can edit or remove scheduled content by clicking the Actions Tab (three dots) next to the scheduled form.
Note: You may also see other post-session booking emails/automations listed. If you have appointment reminders set up, for example, you'll see that after booking a session that an "automated appointment reminder" email will be triggered to send. These details are meant to give providers more insight into the automations that occur on behalf of your business, and to better understand what communication clients will receive.
Best Practices with Appointment Forms
If a form is tied to an appointment type AND also added to an Intake Flow, a client will be prompted to complete the form again. You may want to consider having only one trigger for a specific form (either tie it to the appointment, or the Intake Flow, but not both).
Here is a guide that you can share with your clients on how to best complete their forms.
If your client has an email on file, they will get an email notification that their provider has requested them to complete a form. This will prompt them to log into their client portal. If a client already has the Healthie mobile app, they will see a notification to "Fill out forms" within the Healthie mobile app, and they can complete the forms from their mobile device.