The Client Onboarding & Intake System — For Therapists in Private Practice
The onboarding your intake forms don't cover, on sixteen editable pages
That part still comes out of your mouth, every new client. Here it is written down: your fee, your window, your reply hours. Edited in Canva in an afternoon, sent before session one.
Your EHR keeps the signed paperwork. This is the half nobody signs, and the one the client still has in week six, when they're wondering what a late cancellation costs.
Instant download · Editable in Canva · Yours to keep
The session starts at ten. At twenty past, you are still explaining the rate.
Then the cancellation window. Then why you don't reply on Sundays.
That was paid time. It was supposed to be the work.
And the part that costs more than twenty minutes: the first text at ten at night. Nothing is wrong. The client just thought of something. You are on the couch. For a second, you almost answer.
Telling yourself it is fine if clients message any time works right up until it isn't. By then the boundary is not a policy any more, it is a correction. And corrections land badly on someone who is already anxious.
Written from what therapists describe publicly about their own practices. Not customer reviews.
All sixteen pages, before you pay
You're going to put your name on this and send it to a client. So here is every page of the COLUMN screen edition, at a size you can actually read. GROUND has the same sixteen pages in its own look.
Everything said up front, and nothing made up about your practice
Digital office hours, response window, cancellation policy, fees — each gets its own page. Written for a nervous person reading the night before. So you never have to quote the rule back at anyone afterwards.
Each theme also ships as a -Print edition: white ground, nothing running to the edge, half-inch margins, a high-contrast crisis block. No color cartridge needed.
Rates, license number, cancellation window, portal link, state. Every one of them is a visible square-bracket slot. No page claims anything about you that you didn't put there.
The same sixteen pages, in the file that fits the moment
Nothing to choose at checkout. Both themes and both editions are in the one purchase.
COLUMN
Warm editorial. A clean sans headline, one hairline rule, wide margins. It reads like a booklet someone made on purpose.
Shown here: pages 8 and 9, the cancellation policy and the between-sessions page, exactly as they come.
GROUND
Earthen and serif. Deep green fields, a classical display face, sand-colored paper. For a practice that has been open a while and wants to look it.
The same two pages, the same words — a different room to read them in.
For the office printer, not the print shop
The screen file on the left, the -Print file on the right: the same crisis page, rebuilt on white with nothing bleeding to the edge and the 988 block set for high contrast.
Send the screen edition by email. Print the other one for the folder you hand across the desk.
The same page, four times over
The four Canva files arrive named the way you'll look for them:
Client Welcome & Intake Guide — COLUMN-Print
Client Welcome & Intake Guide — GROUND
Client Welcome & Intake Guide — GROUND-Print
One late cancellation is worth more than this whole system
A cancellation policy is easier to hold when the client already read it, in your words, before the first session. Much harder when the invoice is the first they hear of it.
That is arithmetic, not a forecast. The guide states the window and the fee. It doesn't collect anything, and it can't make anyone show up. Whether you charge the fee or waive it stays your call. Email 4 is written for exactly that moment. Nobody can honestly put a number on no-shows and late cancellations, so we don't.
Everything in the system
16 pages, US Letter, in four Canva files: COLUMN, COLUMN-Print, GROUND, GROUND-Print.
Inquiry Reply · Pre-Session Reminder · Intake Follow-up · Late Cancellation Notice · Post-Session Check-in. Written to sound like a therapist, not a billing department.
A 25-step PDF that takes you from downloaded files to your first client's inbox in one sitting, with each email tied to the moment it goes out.
Five pages: all four template links, the 15-minute edit pass that clears every [slot] in two sweeps, the five scripts in full, a group-practice conversion, and the whole slot inventory.
The five pages that each need a number you have to go and look up
This is where the afternoon goes when you write a welcome pack yourself. It's also the part most welcome packs skip.
A Good Faith Estimate introduction for private-pay clients, in plain language, for the No Surprises Act conversation you have to have anyway.
Platform, waiting room, what to do when the connection drops, and a [State Licensing Limit] slot for the question of which state your client is physically sitting in.
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, Crisis Text Line 741741 and 911 in a fixed block, plus a [Local Emergency #] slot and a "Crisis resources verified [MM/YYYY]" line, so a client can see when the numbers were last checked.
What confidentiality covers and where it ends, the risk of unencrypted email and text, and a [State Law Reference] slot.
Bracketed lines on the cancellation page and the privacy page that name the two places worth reading with your board or your attorney before you send the guide out. Do the review, delete the line.
These are slots and starting wording. Nothing here is legal advice. The guide raises the questions. Your state's answers are yours to fill in.
Your EHR forms, an Etsy welcome pack, and this
Instant download · Editable in Canva
What this does not do
Consent forms, privacy notices and treatment agreements belong in your EHR. Already running SimplePractice or TherapyNotes? Keep it. This sits next to it and replaces nothing.
The guide states the policy in words a client can read without flinching. Then comes the day someone misses, and you have to decide whether to charge the fee or waive it. Email 4 is written for that day. The call is yours.
Nobody can honestly put a number on that, so we don't.
It works on the people who already wrote to you. Getting more of them to write is a different job, and this isn't the tool for it.
No design product can claim otherwise, and we don't. What you get is the slots, the starting wording, and two review markers on the pages worth reading with your board or your attorney. That reading is on you.
The whole onboarding system
Everything you might be wondering
Say it once, in writing, before the first session
16 pages, four Canva files, five email scripts and two setup PDFs. In your inbox the second you check out. Want another look first? Every page is up above.
Get instant access — $42Instant download · Editable in Canva
DISCLAIMER: This template is for informational and branding purposes only and does not constitute legal or clinical advice. Regulations vary by state and licensing board. Consult your healthcare attorney or professional association (e.g., APA, ACA, NASW) to ensure compliance with local laws. Instant digital download — no physical product is shipped. Your purchase is licensed for your own practice; reselling or sharing the source files is not allowed.