Help Centre › Clinical care

Consent forms

Write your consent wording once, say which procedures need it, and the app asks for the right form at the right moment - on the plan, on the consult, on the stay, on the grooming and at the till.

A consent form records what an owner agreed to. You write your wording once, say which items on your price list need it, and from then on the app asks for the right form whenever that work is billed. Nobody has to remember which procedure needs which paperwork.

A consultation billing a sterilisation says what it needs signed, both on the line and once for the whole visit.

Where	What it does
Your wording	Write each form once, with the questions it should ask.
Which work needs it	Tick the forms a price item needs. This is the step that makes the rest automatic.
Where you are asked	The plan offers them; a visit, stay, grooming or sale says on the line if one is unsigned.
Getting it signed	On your tablet, by a link to their phone, or on paper.

Careful

Nothing is ever blocked. The app tells you a form is unsigned; it never stops you adding a line, finishing a consultation, discharging a patient or taking a payment. A vet with the owner in front of them and a patient already under is not helped by software that will not let the invoice close.

Switching consent on#

Who can do this

Practice administrator.

Settings›Practice Settings›Features & Modules

Consent forms are off until you turn them on. Switch on Consent forms in the Optional Features card and save. The consent screens then appear for your staff.

Note

With consent switched off, nothing anywhere asks for a form, and no warnings appear. Forms you issued before switching it off are kept and can still be read.

Write your wording#

Who can do this

Practice administrator.

Settings›Consent Forms

Each form in your library is a piece of wording plus the questions it should ask. A general anaesthetic form might ask how long the patient is expected to be under and what to do if the heart stops; a euthanasia form might ask what the owner wants done afterwards.

Press New form and give it a name. The owner sees this name, so write it the way you would say it: "General anaesthetic", not "GA consent v3".
Type the wording. This is what the owner reads and signs.
Add the questions you want asked each time. Each one has a label, a type (text, number or a choice from a list) and can be marked required.
Save.

Your own wording, listed. Retired forms stay here and stop being offered.

One form: the wording the owner reads, and the questions it asks each time.

Two kinds of thing can go into the wording, and they behave differently:

Looks like	Filled in by	Example
`#PETNAME#`	The app, automatically, from the patient and practice records.	Becomes Bella.
`[[duration]]`	The vet, when the form is filled in, from a question you added.	Becomes 45.

Press Tokens on the form editor for the full list of the #...# codes the app fills in.

Careful

Punctuation around a code is yours to manage. If you write (#PETBREED#, #PETAGE#) and the patient has neither on file, the form prints ( , ). The app leaves an empty code blank rather than guessing, so put codes on their own line, or in a sentence that still reads if one is missing.

Note

Editing a form never changes one already issued. The wording and the questions are copied onto each form the moment it is raised, so a form signed last March still shows what that owner actually read. Retiring a form stops it being offered and leaves every signed copy alone.

Say which work needs which form#

Who can do this

Practice administrator.

Settings›Update Prices›an item

This is the step that makes everything else automatic. Open a price item and tick the forms the work needs, in the Consent this item needs card.

Open the price item - "Sterilisation / Neuter", say.
Tick Surgical procedure and General anaesthetic.
Save.

Ticking the forms a price item needs. This is the one place a practice says so.

From then on, any plan, consultation, hospital stay, boarding stay, grooming or sale that bills that item knows it needs those two forms.

Note

It applies from now on, not backwards. A line that was already on a consultation before you ticked the box keeps asking for whatever it asked for when it was added. That is deliberate: changing a price item should not make yesterday's open visits start demanding paperwork from owners who have already gone home.

Where you get asked#

Once an item is linked, you are told in two places, and you never have to go looking.

On a treatment plan. Price up the work and the plan offers the forms it needs, with a button that adds them all at once. The forms then go to the owner together with the estimate, so they answer one thing rather than three.

On the work itself. A consultation, hospital day, boarding stay, grooming or sale that bills a linked item shows a note under that line saying which form is needed and whether anything has been signed. Above the list, one line says what the whole visit still needs, with a button to raise it there and then.

That second one is for the case the feature exists for: something found while the patient is already open. Add the line, press the button, and the form exists before anybody picks up the phone to the owner.

Note

A sale or a grooming with no patient on it never asks for anything. A consent form is something the owner of an animal signs about that animal, so a counter sale has nobody to ask.

Tip

The note on the line says what to do next, not just that something is missing. "Nothing has been signed for this visit yet" and "On this visit: sent to the owner" are different jobs - the second one means it is already with them and you are waiting, so raising a second copy would only confuse things.

Getting it signed#

Who can do this

Doctors and receptionists.

A form has to be filled in before it can be signed: any question you marked required has to have an answer. A form signed with a gap in it says nothing about the gap.

There are three ways to get a signature, and the app records which one was used.

Way	How	What is recorded
In clinic	The owner signs on your tablet or screen with a finger or a stylus.	The drawn signature, the name, the date, and that it was signed in front of you.
By link	Press Email to owner. They get the form and a link they can open on their phone.	The drawn signature, the name they typed, the date and the device's address.
On paper	Print the form, have it signed, and photograph it back onto the record.	The photograph, and that it was signed on paper.

Note

In clinic is the strongest of the three, because it is a signature made in front of you. Paper is the weakest: a photograph of a signed page carries no time and no device. This is the opposite way round from an estimate, where a staff member recording that the owner said yes is the thinnest evidence there is.

An owner can also turn a form down. That is recorded as a refusal of the whole form, which is a different thing from a refusal recorded inside a signed one - a signed form saying "do not resuscitate" is consent, with an instruction in it.

Careful

Signing is final. A signed form cannot be signed again, edited or withdrawn. If the wrong form went out, raise the right one: the record of what was actually signed stays as it is.

Afterwards#

A signed form stays on the patient's record. You can open it from the plan it came from, from the visit it belongs to, or from the patient's own list of forms.

When a plan becomes a consultation or an admission, its signed forms travel with it, so the visit shows the consent that covers it rather than leaving you to go back to the plan.

Note

A form covers the work it was raised for, not the next one. An anaesthetic consent signed for Tuesday's dental does not cover a procedure in March. Each visit asks for its own.