What Your Patient Sees When They Book Online
When an appointment type has SmartForms V2 attached, the patient’s booking and their intake forms happen in one continuous flow. This page walks through it from their side, so you can talk a patient through it on the phone without guessing.
Step 1: They book
The patient books on your booking page as usual. Nothing about the booking steps changes because forms are attached, and they are not asked to create an account. They pick a time, enter their details, and confirm.
Step 2: The confirmation email arrives
The patient gets their booking confirmation, and the forms come with it. One email, with a button for each form they need to fill in.
The email comes from your clinic. Your logo is in the header, the practitioner’s name is on it, and the buttons are in your brand colour. The patient never sees any mention of the software behind it.
Step 3: They open a form
Clicking a button opens the form straight away in their browser. No login, no password, no access code, no patient portal.
The page shows your clinic’s branding, the practitioner’s name and photo, the form name, and the date the form needs to be finished by.
The form works on a phone, which is where most patients will open it.
Step 4: They fill it in, in their own time
Patients rarely finish an intake form in one sitting, so the form saves as they go. Answers are kept every couple of minutes and again a few seconds after they stop typing.
If they close the tab, lose signal, or put their phone down and come back the next day, their answers are still there when they open the link again. They never have to start over.
Each form has its own button and its own link, so they can do one now and the rest later.
Step 5: They submit
When the patient finishes a form and submits it, the answers arrive on their record right away and you get an email letting you know it came in.
If they don’t finish, the appointment reminder picks it up. Reminders name the forms still outstanding and carry the links again, and stop mentioning forms once everything is done. See Smart Forms In Appointment Reminders.
If the patient is new to your clinic
A patient booking online for the first time doesn’t have a record with you yet. When they submit their form, OutSmart matches their name, email, and date of birth against your existing patients. If it finds them, the submission goes on that record. If it doesn’t, a new patient record is created from what they entered.
Either way you get a real patient record with their intake answers attached, without anyone typing it in.
What to tell a patient who’s stuck
| They say | The answer |
|---|---|
| ”I never got the forms.” | Check the email address on their record first, then their spam folder. Resend from their Smart Forms tab. |
| ”It’s asking me to log in.” | It shouldn’t be. SmartForms V2 opens straight from the link. If they’re being asked for a login, they’ve most likely clicked an older SmartForms link or a patient portal link instead. |
| ”I lost the email.” | Resend the same link from the patient’s Smart Forms tab. Their saved answers are preserved. |
| ”It says my form has expired.” | They can be given more time, and their answers are not lost. See Expiries And Link Timing. |
| ”Do I have to do it all now?” | No. It saves as they go, and each form is separate. |
Related Pages
- Adding SmartForms V2 To An Appointment Type. The setup that makes all of this happen.
- Smart Forms In Appointment Reminders. What happens when a patient hasn’t finished before the appointment.
- Expiries And Link Timing. The two time limits, and how to give a patient more time.
- Viewing Smart Form Submissions. Where the answers appear once the patient submits.
- Emails Reference. Every email the system sends and what triggers each one.