What belongs on your intake form (and what doesn't)

Most intake forms weren't designed — they were inherited. A template borrowed from a clinic, photocopied through the years, quietly accumulating questions nobody reads the answers to. The result usually fails in both directions at once: it asks for things you'll never need, and it under-asks about the few things that genuinely change what you do on the table.

What the form is actually for

An intake form has one clinical job: screening. You're not diagnosing — that's outside every massage license — you're finding out whether anything about this body today changes the work: an area to avoid, a technique to modify, a session that shouldn't happen at all. And it has one professional job: it's a record. Intake forms and session notes are part of the client's health record — the documents that show, if a licensing board or a lawyer ever asks, that you screened, that you modified, that the client consented.

Every question on the form should serve one of those two jobs. Most of the extra ones serve neither.

What belongs

• Who they are and how to reach them. Name, phone, email. That's the contact section; it doesn't need to be a page.
• Why they're here. What hurts, what they want from the session, and any massage history — the conversation starter you'll build the session around.
• The health history that changes your work. Current medications (blood thinners above all), recent injuries and surgeries, blood-clot history, cardiovascular conditions, active treatment for serious illness, pregnancy, skin conditions, and allergies to oils and lotions. Each of these maps to a real decision: pressure, position, area, or "not today."
• Preferences and boundaries. Pressure preference, areas to focus on, areas to avoid. Asking on paper makes it easier to say than face-down through a face cradle.
• Informed consent, signed. A plain statement of what massage is and isn't, and the client's agreement to it. This is the line that protects both of you.

What doesn't

Social Security numbers. Employer and occupation. Marital status. Insurance details, unless you actually bill insurance. The forty-condition checklist where thirty-five conditions wouldn't change a single stroke. These are leftovers from medical billing forms, and they're not neutral clutter — every answer you collect is something you're now responsible for protecting. A shorter form isn't lazier; it's safer, for your client and for you. Collect what you'll act on, and nothing else.

Keep it alive

An intake form filled out once in 2023 isn't screening anyone. The working rhythm is simple: a proper refresh once a year, and one spoken question every visit — "anything change since last time?" — with the answer landing in your session note. And wherever you can, get the form done before the visit. A form filled out calmly on a couch beats one rushed on a clipboard while you reset the room, and it means the first five minutes of table time are table time.

Make the good version the easy version

With Stillbook, the intake goes out with the booking — a private link the client opens on their phone and finishes before they arrive, with a gentle nudge if they haven't. The questions are yours; the signature is captured; and each submission is stored as a sealed record of exactly what they answered and exactly what they signed, encrypted and visible only to your practice. The form stops being a clipboard ritual and becomes what it was always supposed to be: the quiet moment where good care starts early.