The Short Answer
A health declaration before a treatment is a few questions the client answers before they arrive, usually about allergies and sensitivities, medications, pregnancy or breastfeeding, the skin in the treatment area and recent treatments. Settle the exact questions with your product supplier, your insurer or your professional body. Send the declaration before the first visit and again when something changes, ask for a signature at the end, and keep the answers in one place next to the client's card, not in a chat and not in a binder.
Why Ask for a Health Declaration
Because some answers change the treatment, and it is better to know them before the client arrives. In cosmetics you pick a different product, in massage you work around a sensitive area, and in pilates you adjust the exercises. These questions come up in many fields:
- Allergies and sensitivities: to products, fragrance, latex, glue or food.
- Medications: what the client takes right now, including creams and skin products.
- Pregnancy or breastfeeding: a question that matters in many kinds of treatment, from massage to laser.
- The skin: wounds, irritation, sunburn or a fresh tan in the treatment area.
- Recent treatments and surgery: what was done in the area in recent weeks.
- Injuries and limits: pain, surgery, or a limit a doctor or physiotherapist asked them to keep.
A written declaration also gives the client a moment to think of things they would not remember to mention out loud.
What to Ask for Each Kind of Treatment
The table is a set of examples to start from, not a medical checklist and not a required list. Adapt it to the work you actually do, together with the supplier of your products or device, your insurer, your professional body, or a doctor where needed.
| Kind of treatment | Example questions |
|---|---|
| Cosmetics and facials | Active skin products in use, sensitivity to ingredients, pregnancy or breastfeeding, recent facial treatments |
| Laser and hair removal | Sun exposure or tanning lately, medications taken, tattoos or moles in the area |
| Lashes and brows | Sensitivity to glue or tint, contact lenses, a recent eye treatment or irritation |
| Massage | Pregnancy, injuries or surgery, painful areas, the pressure that feels right to the client |
| Pilates and fitness | Injuries and surgery, back or joint pain, returning to exercise after giving birth |
| Makeup | Sensitivity to products, contact lenses, the state of the skin before the event |
| Nutrition and clinics | Food sensitivities, diagnoses and medications worth knowing about, the goal of the meeting |
Keep the form short. Five questions that get answered beat fifteen that get abandoned halfway, and the rest you can ask in person.
This is general information, not medical or legal advice. What matters to ask in your field, and what to do with a given answer, check with your professional body, your product supplier, your insurer, a doctor or a lawyer.
When to Send the Declaration
Before the visit, not at the door. A declaration filled in at the entrance gets rushed, and you have no time to read it calmly.
- Before the first treatment: with the booking, so the answers reach you before the client does.
- When something changes: a pregnancy, a new medication, surgery or another treatment in the area.
- Now and then for regulars too: once a year, for example, so the answers do not go stale.
In between, one question at the start of each treatment is enough: "Has anything changed since last time?"
Why Ask for a Signature
A signature at the end shows the client read the questions and answered them themselves. Above it, put one short, clear sentence, such as "The details I gave are correct, and I will let you know if anything changes." If the wording also covers consent to the treatment or a waiver, check it with a lawyer, your professional body or your insurer before you use it.
Where to Keep the Answers
Not in a WhatsApp chat and not in a binder in the cupboard. In a chat the answers get buried under messages, and anyone holding the phone can see them. A binder stays at the clinic when you need it somewhere else, and there is no telling who opened it.
Health details are sensitive information. Keep them in one place, next to the client's card, where only the people who need them can see them. How long to keep them, who may see them and what to do when a client asks for deletion depends on your field and the kind of information: those are questions for a lawyer or your professional body.
Client details scattered across chats, notes and memory top the list of client management mistakes.
How It Works in Timing
In Timing the declaration is a form you build once, and the client fills it in on their phone from a link. Every step is in the guide to building a customer form.
Build the Form
In the menu, in the "Tools" group, choose "Customer forms" and then "New form". You can start from an example health declaration and edit it, or from a blank form. There are yes / no, choice, text, date and signature questions, and a question nobody may skip is marked "Required question".
Mark It as Sensitive
On a form with health questions, turn on "This form collects sensitive data". The client sees a fixed legal notice, verifies their phone and gives a separate consent, and the form cannot be published as a public link. On a form with a signature question the switch is always on.
Send It With the Booking
Turn on "Auto-send on booking" and pick all services or only some, such as your laser treatments. The client gets the link on the booking confirmation screen and in the appointment confirmation message. You can also send it to one client with "Send to customer", or link the form from the service itself, under "Advanced options".
See the Answers
The form never holds up the booking. The appointment card shows "Form not filled" or "Form filled", so you know before the client arrives. The answers and the signature are in the form's "Submitted" tab and on the client's card, under "Forms". A client who has not filled it in yet can get a reminder from the "Pending" tab.
A detail you want to see at every visit, such as an allergy, can also live in a field of your own on the client card, where it shows under "Additional details". And if old responses should not stay, "Automatic deletion" on the forms screen deletes responses past the retention window, together with their signatures. The deletion cannot be undone.
How it looks in different fields: cosmetics, hair removal and massage.
Where to Start
- Write five to eight questions for your most common treatment, and check them against your supplier's, insurer's or professional body's guidance.
- Draft a short declaration sentence for the signature.
- Build the form, link it to the service for the first treatment, and check it in the preview before any client gets it.
- After each treatment, note what was done and how the client responded, so next time the declaration and the history sit in the same place. More on that in client progress tracking.
When the declaration arrives on its own with the booking, every treatment starts with the answers already in front of you. Start free: creating your business takes about 3 minutes.