Collecting demographics and credit card information from clients

With the Demographics form and Credit card information form, you can collect clients' personal, contact, and payment information through the Client Portal. Information submitted through these forms is saved to the client’s profile.

In this guide, we'll cover:

• Demographics form overview
• Setting up optional and mandatory fields on the Demographics form
• Viewing optional and mandatory fields on the Demographics form
• Credit card information form overview
• Managing a paper version of the Demographics or Credit card information form

Note: To learn more about the paperless intakes in SimplePractice, see Sending intake forms and documents to clients and Sharing documents with multiple clients and contacts.

Demographics form overview

The Demographics form can be sent to clients at any time and allows them to provide their personal and contact information through the Client Portal.

What clients can enter

When completing the Demographics form in the Client Portal, clients can provide the following information:

• Legal first name
• Legal last name
• Middle name
• Whether the client is a minor
• Email address
  • Consent to contact the client via email address
• Phone number
  • Consent to contact the client via phone number

Note: Clients can choose whether to receive email, text, and/or voice notifications and reminders from your practice.

• Address
• Time zone
• Date of birth
• Relationship status
• Employment status
• Information about their contact(s)
  • Whether their contact is an emergency contact

Where the information is saved

Any information submitted through the Demographics form automatically populates into the client’s profile in your account. For more information, see Editing a client's information.

Setting up optional and mandatory fields on the Demographics form

You can add optional fields and set mandatory fields for the Demographics form. To do this:

1. Navigate to Settings > Documentation > Shareable documents
2. Under Demographics and Credit Card, click the 3 dots and select Edit next to the Demographics form

3. Under Which fields should be included in the form?, check the boxes next to the optional fields you'd like clients to submit, such as:
   • Name they go by
   • Insurance
   • Gender identity
   • Photo ID

4. Under Which fields should clients be required to answer?, check the boxes next to which fields you'd like to make mandatory, such as:
   • Phone number
   • Address
   • Birth date
   • Emergency contact - name
   • Emergency contact - email
   • Emergency contact - phone number
   • Insurance information
     • This includes the client's insurance payer, member ID, sex, and relationship to insured
   • Insurance card uploaded
   • Photo ID uploaded

Note: If you check Insurance card uploaded or Photo ID uploaded, this will make it mandatory for customers to submit a copy of their insurance card or photo ID.

5. Click Save

Note: To learn more about optional and mandatory fields and how they appear in the Demographics form, see Viewing optional and mandatory fields on the Demographics form.

Optional and mandatory fields will only apply to the Demographics form after they are saved. If you've shared the Demographics form before configuring these fields, you can resend the form to the client:

1. Navigate to the client's Overview > Files tab

2. Check the status of the Demographics form

3. If the status is Pending, delete the Demographics form from their Files tab

4. If the status is Completed, or after you've deleted the pending Demographics form, you can share the Demographics form with the client again

Viewing optional and mandatory fields in the Demographics form

When an optional field is included, or a field is made mandatory, this will appear distinctively on the Demographics form. 

Optional fields

Optional fields let you collect additional information when needed.

Name they go by

If you checked Name they go by for the Demographics form, this will add a field where clients can enter the name they go by, in addition to their legal name. In your account, the name they go by appears in place of the legal first name on the calendar, the client’s profile, and on billing documents.

Note: The client’s legal name appears on insurance claims.

Insurance

If you checked Insurance for the Demographics form, clients will see an Insurance section where they can enter their insurance information and upload images of the front and back of their insurance card.

Note: The What sex is on your insurance policy? field is required for insurance billing purposes.

This section won’t appear if insurance information already exists in the client’s file. You can enter new insurance information from the client’s Overview page > Edit > Billing and Insurance tab. 

Note: If you’d like an existing client update their insurance information through the Demographics form, you’ll need to delete the insurance information from their Billing and Insurance tab, then resend this form.

Gender identity

If you checked Gender identity for the Demographics form, this will add a field where clients can provide their gender identity, pronouns, and related information. Entries are limited to 140 characters.

Photo ID

If you checked Photo ID for the Demographics form, clients will see an Photo ID section where they can upload images of the front and back of their photo ID.

Clients can use this section to upload their driver's license or other government-issued ID.

Once submitted, you can access the images of the Photo ID in the client's Overview > Files tab. Each image will be indicated as the front or back of the ID under the Type column.

Mandatory fields

When a field is marked as mandatory, clients must complete the selected fields before they can submit the Demographics form. Required fields are indicated by a red asterisk.

Credit card information form overview

If you use online payments, you can securely request client credit card information using the Credit card information form.

What clients can enter

When completing the Credit card information form, clients can enter their credit card details. The submitted information is encrypted, and the full card number isn’t displayed or viewable by anyone in your account.

Where the information is saved

After the form is completed, the card type, last 4 digits, and expiration date are saved to the client’s Billing and Insurance tab.

Tip: If a client has multiple cards on file, you can set a default card and add a nickname to help distinguish between them.

To request updated credit card information from a client, you can resend the Credit card information form through the Client Portal.

Important: The Credit card information form doesn’t include a signature box. To authorize payment processing, you can use a separate Credit Card Authorization consent form. For more information, see Default consent form templates.

Credit card information should only be stored in the PCI-compliant fields in the client’s Billing and Insurance tab. If credit card information is stored outside of these designated fields, you acknowledge the risk associated with storing this data in your account.

Managing a paper version of the Demographics or Credit card information form

If you'd like to provide a paper version of the Demographics form or Credit card information form to your client:

• Click on the form you'd like to share with the client: 
  • Credit Card Authorization Form [via Google Docs]
  • Demographics form for Client Portal [via Google Docs] 
  • Demographics form for Client Portal with Insurance Information [via Google Docs]
• Select Make a copy
• Edit the form to your needs
• Print the form and provide this to the client

Once the client completes the form(s), you can enter their information into the client's Overview > Edit page according to their answers. For more information, see Editing a client's information.

Note: You’ll only be able to add a card to the client’s file if you have online payments enabled. After you enter the information, only the last 4 digits of their credit card will be visible. To learn more about our PCI-compliant Online Payments feature, see Getting started with online payments.