Building intake questionnaires
Build step-based intake questionnaires, import from the template library, and attach them to services so answers arrive before the visit.
A questionnaire is a form the patient fills in, usually before a visit. Their answers arrive on the patient record, so the clinician walks in already knowing the history. Questionnaires are how Ona collects intake without staff typing it up from a phone call.
The Questionnaires page
Go to Library → Questionnaires — "create and manage questionnaires with custom steps and subjects".
Along the top are your questionnaires, each showing its step count with Send and Try out actions, plus New Questionnaire. Below is the Library of predefined questionnaires "ready to import and customize".
Import a ready-made questionnaire
The library is tagged All, Default, Intake, Follow-up, Mental Health, Functional Medicine. Each card lists its first few steps so you can see the shape before taking it:
- Default Ona Interview — the built-in interview template.
- Initial Health Intake — broad first-visit questionnaire for history, symptoms, goals.
- Follow-up Review — shorter, for progress and new concerns.
- Mental Health Check-in — structured check-in for mood, anxiety, sleep, risk.
- Functional Medicine Intake — systems-based across symptoms, digestion, hormones, lifestyle.
Use Preview to read one, Import to copy it into your own set where you can edit it.
Steps and subjects
Questionnaires are built from steps, each grouping related questions — "Reason for Visit", "Medical Background", "Lifestyle and Context". The patient moves through them one at a time, which is easier to complete on a phone than one long form.
Break a questionnaire into steps the way a patient thinks about their history, not the way your chart is organized. A step per topic — reason for visit, medications, lifestyle — completes better than one wall of questions.
Send or test
Each of your questionnaires has two actions:
- Send — deliver it to a patient to complete.
- Try out — walk through it yourself, to see exactly what the patient sees before sending.
Always Try out a questionnaire once before sending it to a real patient. It's the quickest way to catch a confusing question or a step in the wrong order.
Automatic sending
The efficient way to use questionnaires is to not send them by hand at all. Attach a questionnaire to a Service (under Setting up services → Questionnaires tab), and it's selected automatically whenever that service is booked. Booking the appointment sends the intake.
Questionnaires can also be selected ad hoc while creating a visit — see Creating a consultation / starting a visit. And they appear as a section on the patient record, under Inputs → Questionnaires, where completed answers are stored.
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