Physical therapy patient forms checklist
A PT clinic needs intake, functional and pain history, consent to treat, HIPAA acknowledgement, a financial policy and an attendance policy — plus a plan of care the patient signs once the evaluation is complete.
Physical therapy paperwork has to capture a functional baseline, not just a diagnosis. The intake sets the starting point that progress is measured against, so the questions matter more here than in most specialties.
Attendance is the other half. Plans of care depend on the patient turning up for a set number of visits, so the cancellation and attendance policy is a clinical document as much as an administrative one.
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The core physical therapy form set
These are the documents a physical therapy practice collects, roughly in the order a new patient meets them. Every one of them exists as an editable template in the library, so the fastest route is to start from one and reword it for your office.
- Patient intake — demographics, referring provider and reason for referral.
- Functional and pain history — pain scale, limitations in daily activities, work and sport demands, prior surgery or imaging.
- Consent to treat — what therapy involves, expected soreness, and the patient's right to stop.
- Plan of care acknowledgement — frequency, duration and goals agreed after the evaluation.
- HIPAA privacy acknowledgement.
- Financial policy — visit copays, authorization limits and self-pay rates.
- Attendance and cancellation policy — how missed visits affect the plan of care.
- Home exercise program acknowledgement.
What practices most often miss
The gaps below are the ones that surface after the fact — during a billing dispute, a records request, or an audit. They are cheap to fix while you are already editing the form set.
- Outcome measure baselines collected at intake, so progress can be shown rather than described.
- Insurance authorization limits explained in writing before the patient is halfway through their visits.
- Discharge summary acknowledgement at the end of the episode of care.
- Consent for specific modalities such as dry needling where it applies.
When to collect each form
Sending paperwork ahead of the appointment is what actually shortens check-in. The split below keeps pre-visit forms short and leaves the documents that need a conversation for the room.
- 1Send intake, history and policies at scheduling so the evaluation slot is spent evaluating.
- 2Capture functional baselines during the evaluation, in the same fields you will re-measure later.
- 3Sign the plan of care once goals and visit frequency are set.
- 4Re-confirm the attendance policy if visits start being missed, rather than at discharge.
Signatures and record-keeping
Keep the plan of care as its own signed document — it is the record that the patient agreed to the visit frequency the authorization was built around.
Whichever way you collect them, keep each signed document retrievable on its own. A single merged PDF is quick to file and slow to answer questions with.
Building the set in BoomCloud Forms
- 1Open a physical therapy template and edit the wording, questions and required fields for your office.
- 2Add your practice name, logo and contact details so every form is branded the same way.
- 3Share the form as a secure link the patient can complete on their phone, or download a print-ready PDF.
- 4Reuse the finished form for every patient, and update it in one place when your policy changes.
Key takeaways
- 8 documents make up the working physical therapy form set.
- Send everything that does not need a conversation before the appointment.
- Keep consents as separate signed documents, not buried in the intake packet.
- Start from a template and edit it — writing forms from scratch is where weeks go.
Put this into practice in a few minutes
Start from a template, edit the fields and wording, add your practice branding, then share it digitally or print it as a PDF.
Browse form templates