Therapy Intake & Consent Templates

Consent sits inside the intake packet, next to the other documents a new client sees before or at the first session:

• Intake form and intake note. An intake form for therapy is the questionnaire the client fills in. The clinical intake note is what you write afterwards: presenting concerns, history, a safety screen, initial impressions and a plan.
• Informed consent for therapy. What therapy involves, confidentiality and its limits, fees and cancellations, emergencies and how to reach you, records, and an acknowledgment the client signs.
• Telehealth consent. The risks of video sessions, what happens if the connection drops, and the need for a private space.
• AI-use consent, if your practice uses an AI tool in documentation: what the tool does, what happens to any recording, and a choice the client can change later. The rules on this are changing state by state, so check your state and board guidance.
• Your privacy practices notice and practice policies. These are your own documents, and the pack does not include them.
• Screeners. Questionnaires such as the PHQ-9 or GAD-7, sent before the session as a baseline.

What a therapy consent form has to say depends on your state, your license and sometimes your payers. Your license board and your liability carrier are the sources for that.

• The same sections every time. The intake is one of the first documents a payer reviewer asks for in an audit. The same sections in the same order, intake after intake, make a chart easy to follow.
• This client's words in every section. Each section is a form field that asks for this client's concerns, history and supports. Nothing clinical is typed for you.
• Guidance that stays out of the note. A short note on what belongs in a section shows while you write and is never inserted.
• Consent language that is yours. A template gives you the sections and plain-language wording to edit. You make it yours once and reuse that version with every new client.
• The message updates when you change a menu. Pick the screeners you send and the time estimate in the message updates. Pick video or office and the welcome email's logistics paragraph switches.
• Editable output. Everything lands as text in the field you are in, so you can change anything before you sign or send. The intake header lands as a small table in rich-text fields and as plain lines in plain-text fields.
• Already in your words. A therapy intake form PDF from another practice carries their policies and still has to be retyped into your system. A template you insert with a shortcut starts from wording you have already edited.

If your EHR's intake forms and e-signatures work for you, keep them. This pack is the wording that goes in and around them.

If you use an AI note-taker, the two work together. /aiconsent is consent language for that tool, with the client's choice recorded, and /aireviewed is the chart line that says you went through it. The intake structure and the consent wording stay yours.

For a couples therapy intake form, a child or family intake, or a group therapy consent form, start from /intake or /consent, edit the sections to fit, and save the result as its own snippet.

One new client, five shortcuts

These are the things you retype for every new client, in the order they come up:

1. /openings when the inquiry arrives, to offer first-appointment times.
2. /welcome once the appointment is booked.
3. /formsreminder when the paperwork is still open a day or two before.
4. /intake after the first session, for the intake note you write.
5. /reviewed in the chart, to record the consent conversation.

Inside the pop-up

/intake is the clinical note you write after a first session. It is not a form the client fills in, and nothing here collects a signature. The first image at the top of the page shows every field (click or tap it to enlarge). These are the decisions built into it:

• Safety screen. A menu: denies current thoughts of harm to self or others, endorsed - full risk assessment completed and documented separately, or declined to answer - follow up next session. It documents a screen only. The risk assessment itself is yours and is written separately.
• Defaults you type over. Current medications and relevant conditions both start at "none reported". Hospitalizations and substance use detail are toggles, so those lines appear only when you switch them on. The clinician name is a default too: replace Alice Smith, LMFT with your own once in the snippet and it is there every time.
• Initial impressions. A paragraph field for your working formulation.
• What /intake leaves out. As it ships there is no separate diagnosis line and no mental status or observations line. A provisional diagnosis can go in Initial impressions, or you can edit the snippet once and add your own line, for example "Provisional diagnosis (ICD-10):" with a text field. A mental status exam is usually its own note, and an observations line can be added the same way. If you bill the first session as a diagnostic evaluation (90791), check that your note covers both.
• Plan. A menu (weekly sessions, biweekly sessions, second intake session to complete assessment, referral out) with a field for the initial focus, then your signature.

Filled in for a fictional client, it reads:

Client: Maya Chen · DOB: 1990-11-02 · Date of intake: 2026-08-27
Clinician: Alice Smith, LMFT · Referred by: physician referral
Presenting concerns: Persistent low mood and loss of interest for about six months, with trouble concentrating at work. Wants to feel motivated again and stop withdrawing from friends. Onset and course: Gradual onset last winter, worse since a job change in May.
Safety screen: denies current thoughts of harm to self or others
Mental health history: No prior formal diagnosis. Saw a counselor briefly in college for stress and found it moderately helpful. No prior medication trials.
Medical: Current medications: levothyroxine. Relevant conditions: hypothyroidism.
Family mental health history: Mother treated for depression, maternal uncle with alcohol use disorder.
Substance use: endorsed - detail below
Detail: Wine most evenings, two glasses. No prior treatment, interested in cutting back.
Social context: Lives with partner. Project manager on a hybrid schedule. Supportive sister nearby. Main stressors are workload and finances.
Strengths and supports: Steady routine, close friendships, past success with exercise as mood support.
Initial impressions: Presentation consistent with a depressive episode maintained by withdrawal and workload stress. Good insight and motivation. Explore sleep and evening alcohol as maintaining factors. Review screener results next session.
Plan: weekly sessions. Initial focus: Behavioral activation plan. Send PHQ-9 and GAD-7 before next session.
Signed, Alice Smith, LMFT

The header, the section labels, the safety screen wording and the signature were already typed. The rest is what this client told you and what you make of it. The header is a small table in the pop-up and is shown here on two lines, and Onset and course follows Presenting concerns on the same line, as the snippet ships. The pop-up's date pickers show your computer's date style (04/15/1992 on a US computer). The inserted note uses the snippet's format, 2026-08-27, until you edit it.

The other five templates

• /consent, informed consent for therapy as paragraphs, with fields for your approach, state, fee and cancellation terms and toggles for the telehealth and records paragraphs. The second image at the top of the page shows all of it. It is a starting point: review it against your state's rules and your board or liability carrier's guidance, and edit it to how you practice, before you use it.
• /aiconsent, for a practice that uses an AI tool in documentation: a menu describes the tool (drafts notes from a session recording, drafts from your dictation, or organizes written notes), the audio retention sentence appears only when the tool records, and the client marks consent, dictation only, or no consent.
• /screeners, the client message that asks for questionnaires before a session: pick PHQ-9, GAD-7, PCL-5 or ASRS-v1.1 from a menu, the time estimate follows the count, and a second menu sets when they are due. The message names the screeners and points to your own link. The questionnaires themselves are not part of this pack.
• /adhdscreen, one snippet with two outputs: the client message that sends the ASRS-v1.1, with or without a collateral form, and the chart line that documents what you sent. Both keep screening and diagnosis separate.
• /welcome, the first email a new client gets: appointment date and time, a video-or-office menu that switches the logistics paragraph, what the first session is like, and the request to finish the intake paperwork in your portal.

Shorter snippets for the sentences you type most

Ten short finished snippets with no fields, and the part of the pack that stays fully usable on the free plan. They go into a chart or a client message as written, so here is the exact text of three of them. Use one when it is true as written, and edit it when it is not.

/reviewed
Reviewed informed consent with the client, including confidentiality and its limits, fees, and the cancellation policy. Client had the chance to ask questions, stated understanding, and signed the consent form.

/openings
Thank you for reaching out. I have openings for a first appointment this week and next. Reply with a few days and times that work for you, and I will confirm one.

/formsreminder
A quick reminder to complete the intake paperwork in your client portal before we meet. It usually takes 15-20 minutes, and doing it ahead of time means our first session is about you, not forms.

The other seven:

• /limits, the limits of confidentiality were explained and the client stated understanding.
• /telehealthok, the telehealth consent line: risks reviewed, the dropped-connection plan, location confirmed.
• /paperwork, intake paperwork received and reviewed before the first session.
• /aireviewed, the chart line for the AI-use consent conversation.
• /baseline, screeners completed and reviewed, scores kept as a baseline.
• /firstsession, what the first session is like, for a client who asks.
• /cancelpolicy, the cancellation reminder. Edit the notice window and the fee to your policy.

Every intake gets the same sections with this client's words in every field, and every new client reads the same consent wording because you edited it once.