Consents capture a patient's explicit agreement to a specific treatment, procedure, or policy. They're legally distinct from intake forms — a consent is not just collecting information, it's recording a decision.
Consents and forms serve different purposes. A patient can have both a consent and a form for the same appointment — they are not interchangeable.
Consents vs. forms
| Forms | Consents | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Collect information | Record agreement |
| Output | Structured responses | Signed PDF |
| Legal status | Clinical record | Legal document |
| Who builds the template | Admin | Admin |
Admin users build and manage consent templates. See Consents (Admin) for template creation and management.
Sending a consent
You can send a consent document from any patient record:
- Open the patient record
- Go to the Consents tab
- Click Send Consent
- Choose the consent template from the list
- Confirm — the patient receives an email with a secure link
The patient does not need to log in. The link takes them directly to the consent document.
What the patient sees
Your patient receives an email with a link to read the full consent text. Once they've read it, they sign electronically by entering their name and confirming. The signature is timestamped and tied to the specific version of the consent they were sent.
Viewing signed consents
From the Consents tab on any patient record, you can see:
- The consent template name
- The date and time the patient signed
- The template version that was signed
- A button to download the signed PDF
The signed PDF contains the full consent text as it appeared at the time of sending, along with the patient's name, signature, and the date and time of signing.
Consent versioning
If your admin updates a consent template after a patient has already signed it, the patient's signed record is preserved exactly as it was — using the version that was active when the consent was sent. You'll always see what your patient actually agreed to, not a later version of the document.
Who can access signed consents
Clinic admin users cannot view signed consent PDFs. Only clinical practitioners have access. This is a deliberate privacy safeguard — consent documents may contain sensitive clinical information.
If an admin needs to confirm a consent was signed, they can see the signed status in the Consents tab, but cannot open or download the PDF itself.