Automatic forms before appointments

Most forms send themselves. You do not have to remember a medical history before every appointment or a consent before every filler: how a form is set up decides who receives it, and the app does the rest.

The rule, in three lines

• A form attached to treatments or categories goes out with bookings for those treatments only.
• A form attached to nothing, with Send to every patient, on every booking switched on, goes out with every booking.
• Aftercare goes out after the visit, to whichever treatments it is attached to.

That is the whole of it. For a worked example of each line, and how to check what any one of your own forms will do, see How forms decide who gets them.

Which setup suits which form

Your medical history questionnaire is the classic every-patient form: attached to nothing, switch on, so everybody gets it whatever they book. A treatment consent is the opposite. Attach it to the treatment it belongs to and a patient booking dermaplaning is never asked for your lip filler consent. Attach it to a whole category if every treatment in that category needs it, and new treatments you add to that category inherit it automatically.

Attaching a form and sending it to everybody are alternatives, not additions. While a form is attached to a treatment, the every-patient switch is not available to turn on, because the attachment has already said who gets it.

Returning patients

A patient who comes in regularly is not asked to fill in the same form every few weeks. If they completed a form inside its re-send window, it is not sent again. For the medical history questionnaire specifically, a returning patient is sent the short Confirmation of No Changes attestation instead, so their record is refreshed without the whole questionnaire every visit. Nobody is ever sent both on the same booking.

While the full questionnaire is still in date, the short Confirmation of No Changes form is sent at each applicable appointment, including reviews, when it is offered only as a replacement for the full questionnaire. If your clinic has attached the short form to treatments or categories itself, its own How often to ask the same patient again setting applies. A completion inside that re-send window means it is not sent again for that visit.

In the questionnaire's Settings, use Short form for returning patients to choose the short form. Use the default by name looks for a published medical history form whose name contains Confirmation of No Changes. If no suitable short form is available, the full questionnaire is sent instead. The editor still asks you to confirm a rename that changes whether this name is recognised.

Forms for review bookings

A review inherits the forms attached to its category, just like any other treatment. A price of £0 does not change which forms are raised, and a treatment cannot opt out of its category's forms.

If your clinic requires a different set of forms for reviews, you can place those treatments in a Reviews category with the appropriate attachments under Settings → Treatments. Forms set to go to every booking still apply. If a review becomes a treatment visit, add the treatment to the visit and check the forms offered for it.

To avoid repeating a consent within 12 months, open that form and set How often to ask the same patient again to Not within 12 months, if that matches your clinic's consent requirements. This changes the re-send window; it does not complete or cancel requests already raised.

Reminders chase outstanding forms

The form link goes out with the booking confirmation, and any form for that appointment still outstanding is included again in the appointment reminder emails, so a patient who missed the first email gets another chance before they arrive. No extra emails are sent; the links ride the reminders you already send. Forms sent by hand, with no appointment attached, are not chased this way, so share those links yourself. If a form was actually done on paper, cancel its request from the Outstanding forms page and it disappears from your counts.

Automatic requests need a published version. Their links reach the patient through booking confirmation and reminder emails that are enabled and can be delivered. If an email is switched off, held back or the patient has no email address, the requests can still appear on their record for you to share or complete in clinic.

Cancellations tidy up after themselves

Cancelling an appointment normally cancels its pending form requests too. The links then stop working and the requests leave your outstanding counts. If a request remains open, cancel it from Outstanding forms.

You can still send any form by hand at any time, from the patient's record. The automatic sends simply handle the routine cases for you.