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Forms & Questionnaires

Some things are a conversation. Some things need a signature.

Questionnaires are a chat: Ona asks about the subjects you define and adapts to the answers. Forms are a fixed document the patient reads and signs. Both arrive on the chart before the visit.

  • Conversational questionnaires
  • Static forms
  • Secure one-time links
  • Signed & auditable

“Tell me about your sleep” and “I consent to this procedure” are not the same kind of question. One needs to follow the patient wherever their answer goes. The other needs to be identical for every patient, and signed.

Ona gives you both, and they are genuinely different tools — questionnaires for the conversation, and forms for the document. Same delivery, same chart, different jobs.

In progress questionnaire

01 · Why it matters

One input tool is always the wrong input tool.

A clipboard can't ask a follow-up question. A conversation can't hold a signature.

Most systems give you a form builder and stop there. So the intake history — the part that genuinely varies per patient — gets squeezed into checkboxes and a free-text box, and you read three pages to find the one sentence that mattered.

Push everything the other way and you have the opposite problem. A conversation is a wonderful way to take a history and a poor way to record consent, because consent has to be the same words, in the same order, for everyone — and provably so.

In progress form

02 · Two ways to ask

Which one you reach for.

The short version: if it needs a signature, it's a form. If it needs a follow-up question, it's a questionnaire.

Questionnaire

A conversation that adapts.

Reach for this when the answer you need depends on the previous answer.

You describe the ground you want covered and how to cover it. Ona runs it as a chat on the patient's phone, in plain language, at their own pace — asking the follow-up a fixed form could never have known to ask.
  • Built from steps and subjects — topics to cover, not fixed questions
  • Ona asks, follows up, and only moves on once the step is covered
  • Returns a structured result: what's working, areas of attention, next steps
  • Extracts diagnoses, medications, allergies and observations onto the chart

Form

A document that holds still.

Reach for this when every patient must see exactly the same thing — and sign it.

The same blocks in the same order, every time. The patient has to read to the end before they can sign, and what they signed is fixed at submission — the document can't quietly change underneath a signature.
  • Five block types: text, single choice, multiple choice, short and long answer
  • Mark any question required; the patient can't submit until it's answered
  • Review, agree, then sign — a drawn signature on every submission
  • Stored with a document hash, the signature, and an audit trail
The form builder, with the patient's view previewed live beside it.

03 · What you get

Both, without running two systems.

Intake that asks properly

Conversational pacing means hard topics land more gently than a checkbox, and a vague answer gets a follow-up instead of a shrug.

Structured clinical records

A completed questionnaire returns diagnoses, medications, allergies and observations as editable records linked to the chart — not a paragraph for you to re-type.

Signed and provable

Every form submission carries a drawn signature, a hash of the exact document that was signed, and a timestamped audit trail you can open years later.

Start from the library

Ready-made questionnaires — intake, follow-up, mental health, functional medicine — and form templates you can import and edit rather than build from nothing.

Secure one-time links

Both go out as a link that needs no sign-in, expires, and can only be used once. Or hand a tablet to the patient at the desk and have them fill it in there.

Attached to the service

Pin a questionnaire and a consent to a service once. Booking it sends everything in a single email, so nobody has to remember.

04 · How it reaches the patient

Build once, then forget it.

  1. Build it or import it

    Draft a questionnaire as steps and subjects, or a form as ordered blocks with a live preview of what the patient will see. Or import one from the library and edit it.

  2. Attach it to a service

    Pin it to the services it belongs to. From then on, booking that service sends it automatically — or send it by hand to one patient when you need to.

  3. The patient completes it

    They open a secure one-time link on their phone. No app, no password, no account. A questionnaire is a chat; a form is read, answered and signed.

  4. It lands on the chart

    Answers arrive under Inputs on the patient record before the visit — a structured summary and clinical records from a questionnaire, a signed document from a form.

“We stopped trying to make one form do everything. History is a conversation now, and the paperwork is paperwork. The first minute of a visit went from “let me catch up on you” to “given your sleep and your stress, let's start here.” ”

Dr. Priya ShankarIntegrative Medicine · Cedar House Health

05 · In practice

What each one is actually for.

New-patient history

Questionnaire — because it varies.

Timelines, medications, lifestyle patterns. Every patient's history goes somewhere different, and the follow-up question is usually the one that matters.

Policies & agreements

Form — because it must not vary.

Financial policy, cancellation terms, a specific procedure agreement. Same wording for everyone, signed, and retrievable exactly as it was signed.

Behavioral health

Questionnaire — because tone matters.

Mood, sleep, stress and risk answered in conversation rather than as a grid of radio buttons — and summarised so you can read it in a minute.

Post-visit feedback

Form — because it's short.

A handful of fixed questions, the same for everyone, easy to compare across patients. No conversation required.

FAQ

Common questions.

What's the difference between a form and a questionnaire?
A questionnaire is a conversation — Ona asks about the subjects you define, adapts its follow-ups to the answers, and returns a structured summary plus clinical records. A form is a fixed document — the same blocks in the same order for every patient, completed and electronically signed. Use a questionnaire to take a history; use a form when the wording must not change and you need a signature.
Do patients need an account?
No. Both go out as a secure one-time link that opens in any phone or desktop browser with no sign-in. The link expires and can only be used once. Patients who do have a portal login can complete them there instead.
Can a patient fill something in at the front desk?
Yes — forms have a “fill on this device” mode that hands your tablet to the patient in a locked-down view and records which staff member witnessed it.
What does the clinician see after a questionnaire?
Three tabs on the patient record: the structured result — working well, areas of attention, insights, next steps, daily checklist and timeline — the full conversation transcript, and the clinical records Ona extracted: diagnoses, observations, allergies and medications, all editable.
How do you prove what a patient signed?
At submission Ona stores the signature, a SHA-256 hash of the exact document that was on screen, the timestamp and the request metadata. Editing the template afterwards leaves the signed copy untouched, and a mismatch between a document and its hash is rejected rather than quietly accepted.
Can we migrate our existing PDF intake?
Bring it in and we'll help split it. Usually the history half becomes a questionnaire and the policy-and-signature half becomes a form — which is the part most PDFs were doing badly anyway.
Is this HIPAA-compliant?
Yes. Answers, conversations and signed documents are encrypted in transit and at rest, role-scoped to your workspace, and stored alongside the chart with an audit trail.
Ready when you are

Start every visit already caught up.

Bring your current intake pack — we'll split it into a questionnaire and a form live, in fifteen minutes.

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