Setting up patient intake requirements

Patient Intake is an organization settings page that controls what patients must fill in before they finish setting up their account. Some profile details can also be required before a patient can book online.

How do I set up patient intake requirements?

In the left sidebar, click Settings (at the bottom). In the settings menu, under Patients, click Patient Intake. Use this page when you want to make intake stricter for patients who finish setup from now on. This page has two parts: required profile details, and insurance or payment requirements that can also be asked for during setup.

Use Required details (1) to choose the profile fields patients must complete. Insurance (2) is the insurance and payment section below it. Turn on Require insurance (3) to ask for plan details during setup, and use Card on file (4) for the payment method requirement on the same page.

The required details section is where you decide which profile fields patients must complete. Name and email stay required at all times, so you cannot turn those off. The insurance and payment section uses the same underlying settings as your Insurance and Stripe pages, so a change here also shows there.

1. In Required details, select the checkboxes for the profile details you want to require. Use Date of birth and Phone number for basic intake, Photo ID when you need front and back photos of a driver's license or state ID, Gender, Preferred contact method, Height, Weight, Occupation, Race / ethnicity, Preferred language, and Marital status for personal details, Address and Emergency contact for location and safety details, and Pharmacy when patients should have at least one pharmacy on file for e-prescriptions.
2. If your practice collects insurance information during setup, turn on Require insurance. Patients must add at least one plan before they can finish setup.
3. If you also need images of the member card, turn on Require insurance card photos. This stays unavailable until insurance is required, and it means the plan must include front and back card photos.
4. In Card on file, turn on Require a payment method if the page shows a single card switch. If the page shows multiple billing profiles, turn on the switch for each billing profile name that should require a saved card before setup is finished.
5. Select Save changes.

After the page saves, the new rules apply to setups finished from now on.

If you need to turn on insurance billing first, see Setting up insurance. If you need to connect payments first, see Connecting Stripe for patient payments and Managing billing profiles.

What can't I do here?

On the Patient Intake page, these limits apply:

• Staff and clinicians cannot change these settings.
• You cannot turn off name or email as required profile details.
• You cannot require insurance here until insurance billing is turned on in Insurance settings.
• You cannot require insurance card photos until insurance is required.
• You cannot require a card on file for a billing profile until that profile can take Stripe charges.
• Changes do not retroactively update patients who already finished setup. They apply to setups finished from now on.

Common questions

Do these settings affect online booking?

The required profile details do. Patients cannot finish setting up, or book online, until those required details are filled in. Insurance and payment requirements are asked for before setup is finished.

Why can't I turn on the insurance requirement?

That switch is only available when insurance billing is turned on for your organization. Turn on insurance billing first in Setting up insurance.

Why is the card-on-file switch unavailable?

The switch stays unavailable until the billing profile can take Stripe charges. If Stripe is not connected yet, or charges are not enabled for that billing profile, connect or finish setting up Stripe first. See Connecting Stripe for patient payments.

Do I need to update Insurance or Stripe settings separately?

No. The insurance and card requirements on this page are the same settings used on the Insurance and Stripe pages. If you change them here, the change shows there too.

What happens if I have more than one billing profile?

The card requirement is set per billing profile. If your organization has more than one billing profile, the page shows a separate switch for each one so you can require a card on file for some profiles and not others.