Health Coach Intake Form

A well-designed and intuitive health coach intake form, developed to obtain a comprehensive understanding of client needs and help coaches deliver effective treatment interventions.

By Liliana Braun on Jul 15, 2024.

tick

Fact Checked by Nate Lacson.

Use Template
AI IconToolbarShare ui

What is a Health Coach Intake Form?

Whenever a new patient signs up to receive treatment at a health coach practice, it is part of regular practice management system protocols that they complete an intake form. Though the purposes of these forms cary with the type of practice, they are primarily used as a tool to gather information regarding client's background, personal details, past experiences, and other information related to the client's health status. Perhaps most important, a Health Coach Intake Form provides clients an initial opportunity to voice their desired outcomes.

Effective health coaching relies on the premise of developing a holistic, integrated plan that supports patients in overcoming barriers to wellbeing, and reaching desired outcomes. Although success is contingent on many factors, the coaching process can be strengthened by providing opportunities for client engagement. Consistently providing these opportunities can empower patients to take hold of their journey, which is essential to strengthening the motivation, confidence, and determination required to achieving mutual health goals.

The onboarding process during client intake is often one of the most important stages of health coaching, as it sets the basis for the coaching program. Although this process should be simple, it can very easily become complicated if you don't have access to the right resources. This is why we at Carepatron have created the Health Coach Intake Form.

Designed for health coaches and life coaches alike, the Health Coach Intake Form is a structured document that organizes all the necessary information into relevant sections, allowing new clients to easily complete it during their first session.

How to use the Health Coach Intake Form?

Fortunately, using the health coach intake form template requires a simple process. We have broken down what you need to do to maximize the template in this step-by-step guide:

Step 1: Access the form

This one is fairly obvious, but the first step you need to take is to access the form. A link to the PDF on this page should open in your device's PDF reader. From there, you can either edit the document directly or download and store it on your device to be used later. We recommend downloading and saving the form, making it much easier to access and edit whenever new patients come into your practice.

Step 2: Give the form to clients

When a new client signs up for treatment at your health coach practice, you must give them the intake form. You can do this in a couple of ways: either sending them an electronic copy before the day of their first appointment or giving them a hard copy when they come into the practice. While each option is perfectly fine, we recommend using the intake form electronically, as this will ensure the onboarding process is as efficient as possible and reduce the time clients spend in the waiting room.

Step 3: Upload data into your system

After the client has completed the intake form and returned it to you, upload the data into your selected practice management system. It is likely that you have some kind of EHR (electronic health records) platform in place, and these operate at their best when they have thorough and accurate client data. Ensure you upload the client information correctly to ensure clinical decisions remain well-informed.

Who may use this Health Coach Intake Form?

This printable Health Coach Intake Form, as the title suggests, has been designed primarily for use in health coach practices. Whenever practitioners have new clients who sign up to receive their services, they should distribute the intake form to them.

Additionally, there is a range of different specializations within the health coaching field, and all of these can use the intake form. The four main types of health coaches are:

  • General health coach
  • Holistic health coach
  • Wellness health coach
  • Primal/paleo health coach

Although each of these types of coaching has its own specific techniques and methods of treating patients, the intake form that we have designed can easily be implemented for all. This is the same for the age of the patient, regardless of whether they are children, teenagers, adults, or elderly individuals.

Why is this form useful for health coaches?

This intake form has a range of different day-to-day uses for health coaches, including the following:

  • Automates the intake process: Perhaps most importantly, the intake form works to automate the intake process. Instead of asking patients individual questions and following them up for extra information, the intake form ensures all relevant data has been collected.
  • By doing this, you can reduce the amount of time spent onboarding new patients significantly and focus instead on delivering quality care outcomes.
  • Data accuracy: These intake forms also help improve the accuracy of patient data stored in your practice's system. When a patient completes the form and you upload their data into the system, you can quickly and easily access the data required to develop an effective and personalized treatment plan.
  • Identify areas requiring treatment: The information in an intake form provides health coaches with comprehensive and necessary details concerning their client's health. Without these forms, important pieces of information may be missed, and coaches won't completely understand their client's health. The data supplied will reveal specific areas that require improvement, contributing to developing an effective treatment plan.
Health Coach Software Feedback

Benefits of the Health Coach Intake Form

Implementing this health coach intake form into your health coaching practice software has resulted in various benefits. Some advantages impact the individual life coach, whereas others are good for the practice and the healthcare industry. These benefits include:

Reduces time spent in the waiting room

When patients initially come into your health coaching practice, they don't want to spend a lot of time in the waiting room. We understand that maintaining a cohesive and organized schedule can be difficult at times, particularly given the prevalence of no-shows.

This is why you want to implement various resources that help streamline onboarding and ensure patients can get straight to their appointments. Rather than asking your clients to complete the form when they come into the clinic, you should send them an electronic copy to be filled in before the day of their appointment. This will reduce the time spent in the waiting room and ensure the schedule remains on time.

Reduce the burden on administrative staff

In addition to improving patient experience, sending clients an electronic copy of the intake form will also reduce the burden on administrative staff. Rather than playing phone tag with clients trying to obtain all necessary information, you can transfer the responsibility to the clients themselves.

Improves overall patient satisfaction

Using intake forms also helps to improve overall patient satisfaction. These documents indicate to clients from the very beginning of their treatment journey that your practice cares about their health and their needs.

The intake form gives clients a place where they can input any of their concerns or wants, ensuring that the care delivery process is as transparent as possible. Health coaching is intended to be a collaborative approach to improving the quality of life of clients, and using a resource like our intake form is a good way to ensure this is the case at your practice.

Better treatment plans

With better data accuracy comes better treatment plans. Health coaches will be able to assess and analyze the information that has been included and develop a corresponding health coaching treatment plan to ensure the client's needs are being met.

As you will know, health coaching relies on developing a holistic understanding of a client, including their health but also other factors about their life. In order to achieve this understanding, coaches need to be given an insight into their clients' lives, which is facilitated through our intake form.

Informed clinical decisions

Overall, the intake forms help contribute to more informed clinical decisions. All of these benefits work to ensure that the patient experience is positive, data collection is accurate, and the development of treatment plans is effective. Consequently, coaches will be able to deliver quality interventions to clients, allowing them to achieve the outcomes they desire.

What should be on a health coach intake form?
What should be on a health coach intake form?

Commonly asked questions

What should be on a health coach intake form?

The specific aspects included in a health coach intake form will understandably depend on the professional preferences of the practice. In saying that, there are a few areas that are included in most intake forms:

  • Client’s personal details, including name, address, DoB, and contact information
  • Past medical and healthcare information 
  • Social information, including marital and employment status
  • Insurance information
  • What the client is looking to achieve at the coaching practice
Where should intake forms be stored?

Intake forms contain highly sensitive information concerning a client and their medical and personal details. As such, these documents are protected by HIPAA and need to be stored in a way that reflects this. You have a few options when it comes to storing intake forms after they have been completed: you can either store a physical copy somewhere secure, like a locked filing cabinet, or you can store them electronically using an EHR system. We definitely recommend the latter option, as most of these platforms have sophisticated security measures in place that work around the clock to ensure client protection.

Do I have to use an intake form?

Intake forms are not in themselves a legal requirement, but it is definitely the smart move to use them. Not only will they automate the onboarding process, but they have distinct benefits for both clients and coaches. If you are worried that you won’t be able to gather enough information on these forms, then that is also perfectly fine. The intake form can work in conjunction with an intake interview, during which you can ask your client any follow-up questions necessary to obtain a fuller understanding of them.

Join 10,000+ teams using Carepatron to be more productive

One app for all your healthcare work