Patient registration and consent forms, filled in and signed on the patient's phone

Yes. Send one link when you book, or download its QR code for the front desk: it carries your registration and your consent to treatment. The patient fills them in on their own phone, with no account or password, checks their answers on one screen before sending, and signs. Both arrive on their record in ClientForms, you get an email, and with Cliniko connected the registration PDF is attached to their Cliniko patient once they’re matched.

That depends on what your practice needs to book and bill. The ClientForms registration asks for the patient’s name, date of birth and contact details, an emergency contact, Medicare and health fund details, and their GP. You can switch fields on or off, and add up to ten questions of your own: yes or no, a date, text, or a list to choose from.

It means a patient is told what their care is likely to cost, including any out-of-pocket gap, before they agree to it. The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care describes it as giving patients cost information, including likely out-of-pocket expenses, preferably in writing, before admission or treatment. On ClientForms that’s the quote: the patient reads it and ticks that they’ve read it before they sign.

The out-of-pocket cost, or gap, is the difference between the fee and what Medicare and the patient’s health fund pay. The Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing says patients have a right to an estimate of costs before they agree to treatment. On a ClientForms quote you enter each fee, with an item number if you use one, and your estimate of the rebate; the patient sees the total, the estimated rebate and their out-of-pocket. The rebate is your estimate: ClientForms doesn’t look up Medicare or health fund benefits.

That’s for the practitioner to decide, with advice from their indemnity insurer. The National Boards’ shared Code of conduct, which covers physiotherapists and dental practitioners, describes informed consent as a person’s voluntary decision made with knowledge and understanding of the benefits and risks involved. A ClientForms procedure consent is built from your own parts: what’s recommended and why, the side or area, the risks of this procedure, the risks of any procedure, other consents such as blood testing, and the patient’s signature. Every word of it is yours.

The shared Code of conduct that physiotherapists practise under asks practitioners to “document consent appropriately, including considering the need for written consent for procedures which are of higher risk or may result in serious injury or death”. Which treatments that covers is the physiotherapist’s call, with their insurer. On ClientForms your consent to treatment can be signed with the registration, before the first visit, and the physiotherapy setup offers two examples to start a treatment consent from, dry needling and spinal manipulation, named only, for your clinic to write and send when needed.

Australian law generally accepts electronic signatures. The Attorney-General’s Department explains that the Electronic Transactions Act 1999 (Cth) confirms the default rule that signatures can be made electronically as well as in wet ink, and each state and territory has its own Electronic Transactions Act. A signed form records consent; it doesn’t replace the conversation before it, and your indemnity insurer can advise on your own forms. ClientForms records the signer’s name, their typed or drawn signature, the time, and the exact sentence they signed, and that record can’t be changed afterwards.

Yes, and the Cliniko integration is included on every plan. A registration is matched to the patient in Cliniko and its PDF attached; when ClientForms can’t be sure who it is, it waits for you to link them, and it creates a new Cliniko patient only if you’ve turned that on. A signed consent and quote is attached to the linked patient as a PDF. PracSuite works too: signed consents are filed as a note, with the signed PDF attached if you choose.