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Forms Needed for Counseling Private Practice

Gathering the right forms is an important part of streamlining your private practice. In this post, we will review the forms needed for your counseling private practice.



How to Find Private Practice Startup Paperwork

When you’re starting out in private practice, having the right paperwork is critical to the success of your practice. There are many resources available to collect the necessary private practice startup paperwork. Here are a few places to look:

Search Google

Google is loaded with different options when it comes to getting the right private practice startup paperwork. You can find free templates or you can pay for templates.

Search Etsy

Etsy has quite a few templates you can purchase for your practice, including some of ours!

Ask Other Mental Health Professionals

Other mental health professionals who have been in practice for years may have adapted forms that fit their needs. These can help you get started, but may be too customized for their practice and may not work for yours. It’s always a good start point to take a look at their forms when you’re looking for private practice startup forms.

Use Our Forms

One of the main ways we fund TherapyByPro is by mental health professionals purchasing our editable private practice forms! Our forms are continually improved by feedback we receive from hundreds of mental health professionals across the country. At the moment of this blog posting (12/13/2021), we are a free directory for mental health professionals, so we’d greatly appreciate your support.

Create your Own Forms

A final options is to create your own forms. This option will be the most time consuming and expensive, but will allow you to get the forms exactly how you want them both aesthetically and content-wise. Some therapists hire graphic designers and lawyers to make it look both beautiful and ethically sound, but again, this option is often very costly.



Most Essential Forms Needed For Counseling

Whether you’re just beginning your private practice or an experienced private practice business owner, having the right forms is essential. It even helps more when those forms can be easily filled in by you or your clients. Some forms may be obvious, while others may not be on the top of your mind. Here’s the most essential counseling forms:

  • Counseling Intake Form – Having an effective counseling intake form is a major piece of the health of your practice. It helps you collect initial information such as: demographic info, employer and work status info, emergency contacts, health and medical info, availability, personal and family info, symptoms assessment. These can also include a financial agreement, office policies, telecounseling consent form, consent for treatment, and a health release consent form.
  • Informed Consent Form – An informed consent form is an essential document that makes sure you and your client are on the same page about goals, treatment, and what you can expect from each other during your therapeutic relationship. You can obtain these forms as standalone documents or get a counseling intake form that includes an informed consent form (like our counseling intake form above)
  • Counseling Treatment Plan – Counseling treatment plans are important documents for medical and mental health professionals to detail information about a client’s disease, goals of treatment, treatment options, expected length of treatment, which provider did what activities on which date, and more.
  • Assessment Forms – There are several options when it comes to assessment forms. Here are a few common ones in mental health: Biopsychosocial Assessment, Biopsychosocial Spiritual Assessment, Eating Disorder Assessment, and a Psychiatric Assessment form

Here are a few more essential forms you’ll want to obtain:

  • Authorization to release information
  • Office Policies
  • Termination Summary
  • Professional Wil
  • Billing or Invoice Forms



Other Helpful Forms to Run an Efficient Practice

Collecting all the forms you need can  definitely be a pain. It can be expensive and time consuming to do it on your own. Another option is to purchase templates, which can streamline your private practice. Here are some forms you may need, as well as some of our editable templates we’ve built for mental health professionals:

View all of our mental health forms here

How Will My Clients Fill Out My Forms?

You should consider how you want your clients to fill out your forms. Here are a few options:

  • In person – This is an old way and will take more time for you and the client. Documents filled out will also not be digital, so storing and accessing these will not be as easy as other options.
  • In a EHR system – EHR systems are a popular choice for getting forms filled out by patients.
  • Using a system like DocuSign – With systems like DocuSign, medical professionals can create and send forms to be filled out by clients and patients securely.

It’s a good idea to collect all the necessary forms your practice will need before you start seeing patients.



Final Thoughts on Forms Needed for Your Mental Health Practice

Thank you for reading our blog on the forms you’ll need for your counseling private practice! We hope you found this post to be helpful in knowing the right forms you’ll need for your practice and also where you can find them.

If you’re a mental health professional looking for more clients, join our directory today! This directory is owned by a team of mental health marketers, so we know how to help you grow your practice. We have free opportunities to help you promote your practice once you join.

Anthony Bart
Author: Anthony Bart

Anthony Bart is a huge mental health advocate. He has primarily positioned his marketing expertise to work with mental health professionals so that they can help as many patients as possible. He is currently the owner of BartX, TherapistX, and TherapyByPro.

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