Before working with a client, it’s imperative that wellness and medical businesses obtain the necessary background information. For example, an aesthetician needs to know if their customer is sunburned to determine if services can be performed safely that day. Similarly, doctors need to know a patient’s medical history to prescribe the proper treatment and avoid contraindications.
The same principle applies to massage practices, which is why many practitioners require clients to complete massage therapy intake forms before their sessions. These forms collect the details massage therapists need to provide stellar client care while also protecting their businesses from legal liability.
In this guide, we’ll teach you everything you need to know about massage therapy intake forms by covering:
Although many massage therapists hesitate to implement intake forms for fear they are too complex to incorporate into their workflow or might alienate clients who expect a more casual experience, the benefits of these forms far outweigh these concerns. With the right strategy, your intake forms will uplift your massage practice, not burden it with additional admin work.
The importance of massage therapy intake forms
Intake forms are vital for massage therapy practices in three ways. They help you:
- Provide better massage experiences: Intake forms help you understand what your customers are looking for in their massages, enabling you to tailor your services to their needs. They also help you spot contraindications or other dangerous situations, preventing you from giving unsafe massages.
- Protect your practice: Use your massage intake forms to obtain informed consent and disclose the risks and benefits of massages. Client signatures acknowledge that they understand the scope of your practice and the risks of being massaged, proving that you did your due diligence in the case of a liability claim.
- Improve marketing effectiveness: Massage therapy intake forms are a powerful source of customer data, from basic information like a client’s age to their specific needs. Plus, you can use these forms to obtain email addresses and permission to receive your email newsletter. With this information, you can tailor your marketing approach to fit your specific customer group, resulting in more bookings for your practice.
These reasons make intake forms a best practice for all massage practices. But what should you ask on your form?
What your massage therapy intake form should include
Most massage therapists tailor their intake forms to their specific practice, specialty, or services to prevent clients from providing irrelevant information. However, generally, massage therapy intake forms should include the following sections:
- Client's personal information: Name, date of birth, contact details, and emergency contact
- Massage goals: Chief complaint or reason for massage, pain areas, stress levels, movement limitations, and any goals for massage therapy
- Session preferences: Client expectations, preferred pressure, areas to avoid
- Relevant medical and health history: Ongoing diagnosed health conditions, current medications, past surgeries, physical activity level, sleep patterns, and general lifestyle
- Practice policies: Any practice-specific policies that customers must adhere to, usually regarding no-shows, cancellations, late arrivals, appropriate conduct, draping, billing, and memberships. It’s also a good idea to feature these policies on your practice’s website so clients know what’s expected of them.
- Consent forms and waivers: Acknowledgement of the purpose and risks of massage therapy, release of liability waivers, and affirmation that the client has voluntarily agreed to massage therapy and has no medical conditions that would prevent them from safely receiving a massage.
Beyond these foundational details, you may also add additional sections or forms related to specific specialties or services. For example, you may have separate forms for cupping, prenatal massage, hot stone massage, and oncology massages.
Free massage therapy intake form templates
Building intake forms from scratch can feel burdensome or even overwhelming. Download our free packet of massage therapy intake forms, which are also hosted on MassageBook’s software. You can use them immediately or as the basis for creating your own forms.
Paper vs. digital massage therapy intake forms
With plenty of software solutions that can easily handle intake online, massage therapists must choose between sticking with paper forms or going digital. Both options have their pros and cons:
Paper
Pros
- Reliable: As long as you’ve printed your forms and have pens available, customers can always fill out your intake forms, no Wi-Fi connection required.
- Low barrier to entry: Massage therapists who aren’t familiar with software may find it easier to handle paper forms. Additionally, less tech-savvy clients may feel more comfortable with paper forms.
- Annotation flexibility: If the massage therapist needs to include a small doodle on the intake form (e.g., to illustrate where the client is feeling pain), they can easily do so with a pen.
Cons
- Longer waiting room times: Since paper forms are physical, clients are only able to fill them out once they’ve arrived at your practice. This leads to longer waiting room times and delays in getting clients onto the massage bed. It may even result in scheduling issues if clients take longer than expected to complete your forms, which means you’ll need to cut their sessions short or run over, delaying the next appointment.
- Storage and clutter: Physical forms require physical storage space, requiring you to invest in storage solutions like filing cabinets. You will also need to dedicate time and effort to keeping your forms organized. Should you scale up and take on more clients, storage demand will only increase.
- Missed contraindications: Although you’re trained to spot contraindications, mistakes are inevitable over the course of a career as a massage therapist. If the customer’s handwriting is difficult to read or they didn’t fill out your intake form properly, you may miss crucial information that would inform your treatment.
- Data issues: With paper forms, you’ll need to manually enter client information into your SOAP notes and client database, increasing your workload. Your practice may also be susceptible to data silos, making it difficult to filter clients and send them relevant marketing messages if their key details are trapped on a paper form.
- Security risks: Paper forms are vulnerable to fire, water damage, or theft. Beyond that, if you ever accidentally leave forms lying on your desk, anyone walking by can view sensitive health information.
Digital
Pros
- Seamless integration: In a comprehensive massage therapy solution, when clients fill out an intake form, the platform automatically uses that information to populate a client profile. If you take digital SOAP notes, you can also attach these notes to the client profile for a comprehensive view of the client’s details.
- Automated workflows: With a digital system, you can set up automatic workflows to ensure your intake forms are filled out before customers even set foot in your practice. Send digital forms via email or SMS the moment a client books, and review all the relevant client information to hold intentional, prepared intake conversations.
- Enhanced professionalism: A branded, digital massage therapy intake form makes a great first impression. Clients will be impressed by your professionalism, and they’ll appreciate the opportunity to fill out forms ahead of time.
- Pre-screening: Since most digital forms are completed before the client arrives, you can easily check and pre-screen your clients to ensure there are no contraindications. Advanced massage therapy software will even highlight potential red flags, minimizing the risk of mistakes. Then, you can take the appropriate next action, whether that’s proceeding with the booking or advising that the client seek care at a different time.
- Better security and compliance: The best digital intake forms are encrypted and stored in HIPAA-compliant cloud environments, providing greater security than a standard office setting. Plus, you won’t have to worry about any damage to physical files. Digital files are also easily backed up, so losing information won’t be a concern.
- Easily scalable: As your practice grows, so does the number of clients and practitioners. Digital forms are easy to keep organized, regardless of your business’s size, and you won’t need to hire additional administrative staff to manage paperwork.
Cons
- Longer setup: Paper forms are easy to set up. All you have to do is create the form, print it out, and you’re ready to go. Digital forms may require researching and purchasing software, configuring the workflows to your needs, and setting up your digital form just the way you want it, which often takes longer than creating a paper form.
- Tech dependency: You’ll need devices with a reliable internet connection for in-office check-ins. If your internet connection fails, you may temporarily lose access to your intake forms.
- Learning curve: Although most modern massage therapy solutions are fairly intuitive, you will still need to invest time into learning how to use them and configuring your digital forms.
- Monthly cost: Most massage therapy solutions work on a subscription model, where you pay a monthly fee to access their features. This means that using digital massage therapy intake forms may be more costly than paper forms.
Which wins: Paper or Digital?
Although both types of massage therapy intake forms have their benefits and drawbacks, digital intake forms are the correct choice for most providers. As our world becomes more tech-focused, clients have begun to expect the convenience of digital systems. In fact:
- 77% of patients prefer to complete intake forms digitally before their visit rather than in the waiting room.
- 65% of patients say they would consider switching providers to ones that offer better digital convenience.
But that’s not the only way that digital forms win; they are also more efficient. Switching to digital intake forms can reduce average waiting room times by 30–50%, getting clients onto the massage bed more quickly and reducing appointment delays.
Beyond that, most digital intake forms are offered as one feature in a comprehensive massage therapy solution. Massage therapists who use software to manage their practices spend less time on administrative tasks than those using paper-based systems, resulting in even greater time savings.
If you’re serious about massage therapy as a career, dedicated to growing your practice, and want to deliver better massages to clients, digital massage therapy intake forms are the way to go.
How to transition from paper to digital intake forms
Moving from paper to digital massage therapy intake forms may seem like a big change, especially for massage therapists accustomed to their current system. However, the transition doesn’t have to be difficult. You can break down the process into five steps:
- Audit your existing forms. Consider your current form critically and determine whether you want to make any changes before you get started with a digital intake form system. For example, are there any redundancies? Are there any fields that you don’t actually need clients to fill out? Are your policies up to date? For example, have you recently changed how you handle billing, and is that reflected in your forms?
- Choose a dedicated platform. Some therapists try to go digital by emailing clients a PDF for them to print and sign. However, this doesn’t solve the problem. Instead, choose a dedicated platform like MassageBook that offers all the intake features you need.
- Create your in-office form fill-out setup. Although one of the big draws of digital forms is that clients can fill them out on their own time, some clients may forget. Set up a system for handling intake forms in your office. This might mean keeping a dedicated tablet in your lobby or printing a QR code to display at your front desk. Either way, clients can easily complete your forms while in the waiting room.
- Import your legacy paper forms. You likely have plenty of paper records that you’re required to keep. Instead of manually typing them into your new system, simply scan old paper files and upload them when regular clients come in for their first appointment under your new digital system. Once the file is backed up in your platform, use a professional shredding service to dispose of the paper form.
- Communicate the change to clients. Most clients will be happy for the added convenience of digital forms, but you need to communicate the change to avoid any confusion. Outline the new process for clients in an email and let them know whether any additional action is required on their end.
This process may vary slightly depending on which digital intake form provider you work with, but these are the general steps they follow.
Massage therapy intake forms with MassageBook
The first step to implementing digital massage therapy intake forms is to choose a software provider that offers all the capabilities you need. MassageBook can take your forms from paper to digital—and more.
Our robust massage software includes intake form features like:
- Custom intake forms: MassageBook understands that every massage practice has unique needs. That’s why we let you customize your intake forms so you only ask clients for the information you need.
- Automated emails: After a client makes a booking, they’ll receive an automated email asking them to complete your intake forms before their appointment. Then, they can complete your mobile-friendly forms at home or while on the go, whichever is more convenient for them.
- Medication and contraindication alerts: Whenever a client adds a contraindication or medication to their intake form, you’ll see alerts in your schedule so you never overlook critical details that might lead to dangerous situations.
- Complete client profile: Easily view each client’s health history by attaching intake forms to client profiles and accessing forms directly through your appointment schedule. Continue collecting up-to-date information on existing clients to ensure you provide massages that meet their needs.
What’s more, MassageBook also provides a suite of other features that make managing your massage practice easier than ever. Our tools include:
Not sure if MassageBook is right for your massage practice? Try before you buy with our 30-day free trial of Amplify, our premium business package. No credit card required, so you can enjoy our features without any upfront commitment. And we offer discounts for AMTA and ABMP members!
Additional resources
Your intake form is one of the first interactions clients will have with your massage practice, so it’s well worth thinking through how you’ll handle it. Leave customers with a great first impression by presenting them with a professional digital massage therapy intake form that collects all vital information. Then, use these details to deliver great massages that keep clients coming back for more.
Want to learn more about running a massage business? Check out the following resources: