Feature
Digital patient intake software, completed before the visit
Send intake questionnaires and consent forms before the visit, matched to the appointment type. Patients complete them on their phone through the portal.
Patient gets a text with a secure link before the visit
Patient completes forms on their phone through the portal
Completed forms are in the chart before the visit starts
No clipboard, no waiting-room delay
Patients get a text before the visit with a secure link to complete their forms on their own phone.
Legible answers, not handwriting to decode
Patients type their own answers before the visit, so staff aren't deciphering handwriting during check-in.
The right forms for every visit
Questionnaires and consent forms are tied to the appointment type, so each patient gets the forms that visit needs.
The waiting room clipboard is the same intake process practices have used for forty years, and it is still the reason patients arrive fifteen minutes early and staff spend the start of every visit deciphering someone else's handwriting.
Criterions moves that step to the patient's phone before they leave the house, so what reaches your practice is a clean, typed, time-stamped form instead of a clipboard.
Where Time Gets Lost
What patient intake means, and where practices lose time in it
Patient intake is everything a practice collects before a visit can be documented and billed: demographics, insurance details, medical and medication history, consents, and identification. It's the front door of both the chart and the claim.
Which is why it's an expensive place to be slow. Intake collected on paper gets written by the patient and then read and typed by staff, and every re-entry is a chance for a transposed policy number, which surfaces later as a denial rather than as a typo. The cost of a clipboard isn't the paper. It's the claim that comes back three weeks later.
Before the Visit
Forms by text, completed on a phone before the visit
Questionnaires and consent forms are tied to the appointment type, so each patient gets the forms their visit needs. Before the appointment, patients get a text with a secure link and complete them on their phone through the patient portal. No app to download.
Consent forms are reviewed and accepted on the phone, and guardians can sign for minors, with the signed document showing who signed. Forms can also be offered in Spanish or other languages, sent based on the patient's preferred language.
Completed forms land in the patient's chart, time-stamped, typed and easy to read.
Front Desk Impact
A front desk that reviews instead of deciphers
When forms are done before the visit, check-in is a quick confirmation instead of a clipboard hand-off. Your front desk spends the start of the visit greeting the patient, not decoding handwriting, and the waiting room stops backing up behind the patient who's still on page three.
A cardiology intake and a podiatry intake are not the same conversation, and the forms shouldn't be. Intake forms are configurable to the questions your specialty actually needs answered, in the same way the chart is.
Frequently asked questions
What is patient intake in healthcare?+
Patient intake is the process of collecting everything a practice needs before a visit can be documented and billed — demographics, insurance information, medical and medication history, consent forms, and identification. It's the first step in both the clinical chart and the claim, which is why errors introduced at intake tend to surface later as documentation gaps or claim denials.
How do patients complete intake forms before the visit?+
Patients get a text before the appointment with a secure link to their forms, and complete them on their phone through the patient portal. There's no app to download. The forms they see are tied to their appointment type.
Does the information go into the chart automatically?+
Completed forms are saved to the patient's chart as time-stamped documents, but the answers aren't automatically written into the chart fields — a staff member enters what's needed. What digital intake removes is the handwriting: patients type their own answers before the visit, so staff work from a clean, legible form instead of a paper clipboard.
Can patients sign consent forms electronically?+
Yes. Patients review consent forms on their phone and accept or decline them. Guardians can sign on behalf of minors, and the signed document shows the guardian's name and relationship.
Can intake forms be offered in other languages?+
Yes. Practices can create versions of their forms in Spanish or other languages, and the patient receives the version that matches their preferred language.
Related reading
Article
How to Reduce Medical Billing Claim Denials
Most claim denials stem from a small set of preventable errors. Here are 7 ways integrated EHR and practice management workflows catch them before submission.
Article
Top Benefits of Patient Portals for Medical Practices
Patient portals streamline communication, speed up bill payment, and reduce administrative burden. Here's what a well-implemented portal actually changes.
Article
Reduce No-Shows: How Healthcare Practices Can Start 2026 Strong
Missed appointments quietly drain revenue and frustrate staff. Here's why no-shows spike early in the year, and how automated reminders reduce them.
The clipboard costs more than the fifteen minutes
Every field a patient writes down and a staff member retypes is a field that can be transposed, and insurance numbers are the ones that come back — as a denial, three weeks later, when tracking down the correct information means calling a patient about a visit they've forgotten. Multiply that across a year and it is not a small number.
The fix is specific: forms go out by text before the visit, and patients complete them on their own phone instead of a waiting-room clipboard — so what your staff works from is a typed form, not someone else's handwriting.
Over 660 practices and billing companies run on Criterions. Bring your current intake process to a demo and it's usually obvious within ten minutes where the re-entry is happening.