Send a form by link or QR code
Send a patient a form to fill in on their own phone, or show it as a QR code at reception, and see what they see and where their answers land.
A patient can fill in their medical history or a consent form themselves, before their visit or in the waiting room. You send them a secure link by text or email, or show it as a QR code they scan with their phone (or open it on the practice's tablet). They confirm their date of birth, fill in the form, sign it when it asks for a signature, and send it. Their answers arrive on their record, waiting for a clinician's review.
Sending a link needs the Send patient forms permission (the front desk, nurses, clinicians, managers and owners have it).
Before you send
- The patient needs a date of birth on file. They confirm it to open the form, so a patient without one can't be sent a link: the dialog says to add it in Details first.
- A form that asks for a signature needs someone who may sign. The same rule as Who signs at the desk: a child's form is signed by a parent or guardian on their Details › Family card. Without one, sending is refused with This form needs a parent or guardian on record to sign.
- The link names who signs. Only that person can sign on the patient's page, so a link can't be signed by anyone else on the Family card. An older link that names nobody can be signed only by the patient; Send again sends a new link that names a signer.
Send a link
Open the patient's clinical record on the Medical tab and click Send form link. In a visit's panel in the Diary, it sits beside the medical history under Before the chair whenever the history is due or there is none yet.
Choose the form, then Text or Email. A channel the patient has no number or address for can't be chosen. The forms for the patient's age come first; one listed under Other ages asks why you are sending it (see Forms by age).
For a form that asks for a signature, check Who signs: the patient when they sign for themselves, or the parent, guardian or attorney who will sign. It starts on the patient, or on the only parent or guardian on record; with several, choose one — the link isn't sent until you do. Send again keeps the signer the link already names unless you choose another; choosing another sends a new link, and the earlier one stops working.
Click Send link.
The message names the practice, never the form, so nothing clinical is in a text or an email. It is sent from the practice's texting number or email, like any other message, and shows in the Inbox.
Each patient has one live link per form. Send again on a link renews the same link for another 14 days rather than making a new one, so an earlier message still works — unless it names a different signer: then the earlier link stops working (showing Cancelled, or Draft kept while answers saved on it are kept) and the new message carries a new link. A link sent from a visit is tied to that visit and its location.
Show a QR code
Click Show QR on the Medical tab or under Before the chair. The dialog shows the patient's live link for the form as a QR code (making one if there is none) and the date it works until. The patient scans it with their phone's camera, or you open it on the practice's tablet. The link itself is never shown as text.
What the patient sees
- Your date of birth — the page asks for the day, month and year (month first for a practice in the United States). After five wrong tries the link is locked for good: send a new one.
- The form — in the patient's language (English, Italian or Spanish), with the practice's name and colour. A yes-or-no question is answered with one tap, and any help text the form gives sits under its question. A question that depends on an earlier answer appears only once that answer is given. A missing answer is listed at the top, linked to the question. The page saves the answers as the patient goes (see Saving and carrying on).
- Signing — when the form asks for a signature, the page offers only the person the link names (the patient, or the parent, guardian or attorney chosen when it was sent, shown by first name and initial). They type the signer's full name and sign with a finger, the mouse or a pen — or choose Type to sign with their typed name.
- Send — the page hides the form while it sends and waits until the practice has the answers. If they could not be sent (no signal, say), it says Not sent yet with Try again, keeps the answers on the page and tries again by itself. Once sent, it thanks the patient and asks them to hand the tablet back; Finish clears the page.
On a shared tablet the form hides itself after three minutes without use, or three minutes in the background, and asks for the date of birth again. The thank-you page clears itself the same way, so the patient's name doesn't stay on the screen. The answers are never stored in the device's browser: the page keeps them in memory and saves them to Smileline as the patient goes, and nowhere else.
Forms from the patient portal
When the patient portal is on, a patient or parent signed in to it sees the same forms under Forms to fill in and fills them in there, without the date of birth: the portal's own sign-in stands for it and is checked again each time the form saves or is sent, at the moment the answers would be filed. A form that asks for a signature opens only for the person its link names, after they confirm who they are. Answers sent once that person's access to the record has ended, even while they were being filed, are kept for you in the review queue, never filed on their own.
Saving and carrying on
The page saves the patient's answers to Smileline while they type, a few seconds after they stop, and again whenever the page goes into the background. A line under the form's title says when the answers were last saved, or that they could not be saved yet — the page keeps them and tries again by itself.
- Carrying on later. The patient opens the same link, on the same phone or another device, and confirms their date of birth: the page says Your answers from 10:42 are back and they carry on where they left off. Only the latest answers are kept; a signature is never saved until the form is sent.
- Save and close — on the practice's tablet, the patient taps Save and close instead of sending. The form hides at once, the page waits until Smileline has the answers, then clears itself and says Saved. Please hand the tablet back. If the answers can't be saved yet (no signal, say), it says Not saved yet with Try again, keeps them and tries again by itself: keep the page open until it says they are saved. If an answer is too long to save, the form stays open and names the answer to shorten.
- Two devices at once. If the patient types on two devices and one falls behind, that one says Answers were saved on another device, and offers Load the newer answers or Keep mine. When they next open the link, any answers that were not combined are offered the same way, as Use those or Keep these. Nothing is overwritten until the patient chooses.
Answers stop being saved once the form is sent, and a link's saved answers are deleted when it is sent. When a link is cancelled, expires or locks before the patient sends it, their saved answers are kept on the record as a Draft kept until someone discards them (see Track and cancel links).
A link that has been used, cancelled, has expired or is locked tells the patient so and gives the practice's phone number. A child's form with nobody on record to sign says that a parent or guardian on record must sign it. A link whose signer can no longer sign (their relationship has ended, say), or a child's older link that names nobody, asks the patient to get a new link from the practice.
Track and cancel links
Form links on the Medical tab lists the patient's links, newest first:
| Column | Shows |
|---|---|
| Last sent | How and when it was last sent: Text, Email or QR, with the time, and not delivered in red when the message did not arrive |
| Opened | When the patient first confirmed their date of birth |
| Expires | The last day a live link works |
| Status | Sent, Opened, In progress, Submitted, Locked, Cancelled or Expired. While the patient fills it in, In progress says when their answers were last saved and how many questions they have answered — never the answers themselves. A link that ended before the patient sent it says Draft kept with the same details while their saved answers are kept. |
Send again opens By text or email or Show QR for that form — a link that no longer works is replaced by a new one. Cancel link stops a live link working at once. Answers the patient had already sent before you cancelled it are still filed, and the link then shows Submitted. The visit panel's medical history line also says when the link was sent or opened, or when the patient's answers were last saved.
Discard draft on a link showing Draft kept deletes the answers the patient saved on it, after you confirm. Smileline never deletes them by itself: only discarding them, a submission through that link, or erasing the patient does. Discarding needs the Send patient forms permission and is recorded in the activity log.
Where the answers go
A form the patient sends is filed on their record exactly as sent, signed and dated when it arrived, and always waits for a clinician's review, whatever the form's own review setting. An allergy or alert the form raises stays provisional until then.
Answers that can't be filed on their own — sent after the link was cancelled or expired, a second answer to a form already sent, sent from a device that had fallen behind another, or signed by someone who can no longer sign — are kept in the review queue, where someone who can fill in forms for patients decides what happens to them. Nothing the patient sends is lost.
The answers a patient saves while typing stay private while their link works: the practice sees only their progress. Two exceptions are kept in the review queue, marked as not sent by the patient: answers typed after the link was used, cancelled, expired or locked, and saved answers Smileline couldn't read or couldn't save.
When a patient is erased, their links that were never used go with them, along with their saved answers and any answers they sent through them that are still waiting in the review queue. From the moment the erasure is requested, their links save nothing more, and none of their answers in the review queue — saved or sent — can be viewed or tried again.
Patient forms and recalls
See where a patient's medical history stands, record their form answers at the desk and have a clinician review them, and work the record's Appointments tab — what to book, what is coming, the waitlist and the past.
Patient portal
Let patients and parents open their records online with a secure link and a date of birth, or with their own account, to confirm or change appointments, fill in forms, pay deposits and balances, download shared documents and sign treatment plans.