Secure online forms are a crucial part of healthcare practices of all sizes.
When you get your forms right, you efficiently and securely collect the information you need from your clients.
But what do we mean by “get your forms right?”
There are a ton of HIPAA-compliant form builders out there. How do you choose one for your small practice?
The thing is, most of the popular HIPAA-compliant form builders are intended for large organizations like hospital groups and medical billing companies. They offer a lot, but they’re expensive.
In this post, we’re comparing five of the most popular HIPAA-compliant form builders so you can find the best one for your small practice.
Pricing: The HIPAA-compliant plan starts at $99/month.
Size and target customer: Jotform is a large company that provides form services to large corporations like Red Bull, Ford, Chanel, and the American Heart Association. As you can see, they aren’t all in healthcare. They claim more than 15 million users from a wide variety of industries. When you sign on with Jotform, you’re a small fish in a big pond.
What they offer healthcare practitioners: Jotform is an online form service that offers most of what you might need for your forms. This includes the required Business Associate Agreement (BAA) and the e-signatures that are necessary if you’re a virtual practice. It’s relatively easy to use as long as you stick to creating simple forms, and it comes with online support through their website.
Jotform also provides a good selection of healthcare templates, including health screenings like the PHQ-9 screening for depression.
You’ll also find numerous widgets that allow you to insert a variety of apps into your forms. However, it’s important to keep in mind that all of the widgets aren’t necessarily HIPAA compliant.
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What’s a widget? An application that’s added to your form but functions independently. A Facebook like box and YouTube viewing window are examples of widgets. |
What they don’t offer small healthcare practices: A phone number to call if you need extra help making your forms work. Only those with an Enterprise plan receive priority support through Zoom, which allows you to “move to the head of the line.” That Enterprise plan doesn’t list its price on the website.
Is it a good choice for a small practice? At $1,200 a year, it’s very pricey for a small practice that only needs a limited number of forms. As a small practice, you’ll likely only be able to use a small percentage of what you get for your $99 a month.
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Pricing: HIPAA compliance only comes with the Enterprise plan, and you need to call for pricing. One thing is for sure; you’ll be paying more than the $99/month – the price for the plan below Enterprise.
Size and target customer: Like Jotform, Formstack also counts Fortune 500 companies among their users. When you sign up, you’ll use the same form service as the NHL and Netflix. And again, that comes with the danger of getting lost in a big company.
What they offer healthcare practitioners: If you do splurge for the HIPAA-compliant plan, it comes with healthcare form templates. These include health screening forms, like the PHQ-9 screening for depression, that automatically calculates a score at the end. It also comes with a BAA and the ability to electronically sign their forms.
What they don’t offer small healthcare practices: Simplicity. If you’re a small practice, you’ll probably feel confused when you go to Formstack to get forms. Because Formstack isn’t just about forms. It’s an “all-in-one workflow automation system” that comes with over 260 integrations. This means you can connect to multiple systems in a variety of ways. If you’re looking for that type of connectivity, then Formstack might be for you. If you’re looking for simple, secure forms for your practice, you’ll probably feel overwhelmed.
Is it a good choice for a small practice? Probably not. Formstack offers a lot that you don’t need as a small practice. Such as integration with Salesforce, which is a customer relationship management (CRM) system. Sounds complicated? It is. Although Formstack is a powerful tool for some businesses, it’s more than a small healthcare practice needs. If you want to wade into these waters, be warned that there’s a significant learning curve. You’ll have to set aside considerable time to learn how all the pieces work to support your practice. A small practice requires simple solutions that can be implemented quickly and don’t require excessive time to learn. That’s not Formstack.
Pricing: $99/month for the Enterprise plan, the only plan that comes with a BAA and HIPAA compliance.
Size and target customer: Cognito Forms serves a variety of small to large businesses. If you read through their customer stories, you’ll find small tennis clubs, accountants, food production companies, and many others. You won’t find healthcare organizations among their case studies, though. That’s not to say they aren’t among their customers. However, it’s unlikely that their customers include very many small healthcare practices due to the expense. The only HIPAA-compliant plan costs about $1,200/year.
What they offer healthcare practitioners: Cognito Forms offers e-signing and some healthcare forms. These include a basic health history form and a HIPAA release of information form. Cognito Forms will also allow you to sync your forms up with an electronic medical record (EMR) using Webhooks. These Webhooks require a certain amount of tech savviness to use. A small practice will likely find this complicated and unnecessary.
What they don’t offer small healthcare practices: Cognito Forms doesn’t offer any healthcare-specific features in their form builder. If you want to include body charts that allow your clients to indicate areas of pain, you’re out of luck. They also don’t provide health screening forms, such as the PHQ-9 or GAD-7.
Is it a good choice for a small practice? Unlike Formstack and Jotsorm, Cognito Forms seems to cater more to small business owners. However, that doesn’t translate to small healthcare practices. The HIPAA-compliant Enterprise plan offers way more than a small practice needs, including integrations with other applications like Google Analytics. This comes at a price, of course. And it doesn’t offer the one thing a small practice really needs – a phone number to call for personalized help with your forms.
Pricing: Starting price is $20,000/year. This price isn’t listed on their website. You need to contact a sales representative, and they’ll request a phone call before they give you the pricing. However, if you push, they’ll let you know the starting price for a HIPAA-compliant plan that includes three admin users and unlimited forms.
Size and target customer: FormAssembly provides data collection and workflow solutions for 5,000+ organizations, including Target and Amazon. They also have some of the biggest names in healthcare as customers, such as Eli Lilly, Merck, and McKesson. Their healthcare case studies don’t showcase any small practices.
What they offer healthcare practitioners: They offer a lot. Including integration with a plethora of applications and sophisticated form-building tools. They also include templates for numerous healthcare forms and priority support. However, at a price of $20,000 a year, FormAssembly is way more than a small healthcare practice needs or can afford.
What they don’t offer small healthcare practices: An affordable price. They also don’t offer health screening forms that automatically calculate a score. However, the form builder gives you the power to create your own formulas for calculations. If you feel up to it, you could probably make your own version of a health screening form with automatic calculations.
Is it a good choice for a small practice? FormAssembly is not for the faint of heart. There’s a lot of talk about coding and other technical matters on their website. It’s not easy to understand if you’re not already well-versed in technology and complex workflows. Not to mention, the pricing makes this product unrealistic for small practices.
Don't forget to fill out your information below to receive six tips for creating top-notch web forms that get results.
Pricing: $24.99/month
Size and target customer: Hushmail caters to small and medium-sized healthcare practices of all types. Many of their customers come from the behavioral health field but also include optometrists, dentists, and physical therapists.
What we offer healthcare practitioners: You may not realize it because Hushmail is known for encrypted email, but we also have an amazing form builder. Developed with the small healthcare practice in mind, we included only the things you need and nothing that will require hours of specialized learning. With Hushmail, you’ll get popular healthcare form templates that you can customize to suit your practice. You’ll also find health screening forms, including not just the PHQ-9 and GAD-7, but also the AUDIT, PCL-5, DASS, SCARED, and SCAARED. Plus the required BAA and necessary e-signatures.
What we don’t offer small healthcare practices: Hushmail doesn’t offer integration with EMRs. However, Hushmail form submissions come with a PDF that can be uploaded to any practice management software. This solution may be preferable because of its simplicity. Syncing forms with an EMR isn’t always easy if you don’t have the right technical knowledge.
Hushmail also doesn’t offer a way to accept payments. However, the form builders that offer this feature do so by adding a payment application like Square to forms. Many therapists successfully use these platforms on their own. This article from the American Psychological Association reviews three different payment applications with Square receiving the highest ranking.
Is it a good choice for a small practice? Yes, for three reasons. 1) The price is very affordable for even a solo practitioner, 2) Hushmail provides personalized support that you can access through email, chat, or a phone call, and 3) Hushmail specializes in providing services specifically for small to medium-sized healthcare practices. This means we make it our business to know what’s going on in your world. For example, when the No Surprises Act went into effect and surprised many practitioners, Hushmail immediately came up with a Good Faith Estimate template. With Hushmail, you aren’t competing against Fortune 500 companies for attention. Your practice is a big fish in a small (but mighty) pond.
Jotform |
Formstack |
Cognito Forms |
Form Assembly |
Hushmail |
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| Created for small to medium-sized practices | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| HIPAA compliant with a BAA | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Signatures | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Body chart feature | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Healthcare templates | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Self-administered forms that calculate a score | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Accepts payments | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Number of forms | 100 | Custom | Unlimited | Custom | 5-10 |
| Price for a HIPAA-compliant plan with a BAA | $99/month | >$99/month Contact for price |
$99/month | Starting at $20,000/year | Starting at $24.99/month |
If you’re like most small practitioners, you want to keep your practice management as simple as possible. You appreciate how technology helps, but you don’t want to spend your days learning the bells and whistles of different software. Even if you do, there’s no time!
Keeping things simple, affordable, and efficient is paramount.
That very requirement excludes a lot of the HIPAA-compliant form builders out there.
Hushmail provides an affordable HIPAA-compliant plan, along with a customer care team that will pick up the phone to help you out. You’ll get a name you can reach out to every time. (You won’t get that with the bigger companies!)
You also get features that were built just for your type of practice, like health screening questionnaires and body charts.
With Hushmail, you’ll never feel overwhelmed with choices, and you won’t have to learn new jargon just so you can use our services. Instead, you’ll be able to set up your forms in minutes so you can focus on helping your clients.