7 Ways Therapists Can Use SurveyMonkey To Run A Practice

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Most therapists never go looking for a survey tool. What they do go looking for is a way to stop emailing the same twelve questions to every new client, a simple way to find out whether sessions are landing, and website copy that sounds like the people they want to serve.

A survey tool quietly handles all three. In this post I’ll walk you through seven ways to use SurveyMonkey in a therapy practice, what each template asks, and how I’d change it before it goes to a potential client or a current one.

Before we get to the fun part, we need to talk about HIPAA.

Start here: what HIPAA means for your forms

SurveyMonkey’s help center says a regulated practice can collect protected health information only through a HIPAA-enabled account with a signed business associate agreement, or BAA, and that those accounts come with the Enterprise plan only [1]. The HIPAA overview page says the same thing and adds that the BAA goes to Enterprise customers [2].

Protected health information, according to that help page, means details about health care that connect to a specific person. A name or contact information paired with information about care they received counts [1]. That means a form that identifies someone as your client could land inside the definition, so ask a compliance advisor where the line sits for each form you build.

The help page also says SurveyMonkey doesn’t require a BAA from users whom HIPAA doesn’t regulate for the information they collect [1]. Whether that’s you depends on your situation, so confirm your status before you pick a plan.

1. Replace the intake email thread with one form

The SurveyMonkey client intake form template has nine questions, and the live preview marks every one as required [4]. It asks for name, email, phone, and address. Then it asks for occupation and company name, which services the person wants, a preferred appointment day and time, and how they heard about you.

That list was written for a general service business, so here’s how I’d edit it for a therapy practice. Keep name, email, phone, services, appointment preference, and the referral question. Cut address, occupation, and company name unless you invoice employers or work with EAP clients. Switch anything a potential client might hesitate over to optional.

Try wording like this:

“Which of these are you interested in? Individual therapy, couples therapy, a group program, or a consultation call.”
“What days and times usually work for you?”
“How did you hear about us?” with choices for a clinician referral, a directory, a web search, social media, a workshop or event, and other.

Leave clinical history off this form unless you’re working in a HIPAA-enabled account (more on that in number 7). The referral question earns its spot twice, because it also gives you the tracking data I describe in number 4.

Grab the template here: Client Intake Form Template.

2. Find out how sessions are landing

The post-visit patient satisfaction template has 16 questions, and its page reports more than 4,000 uses [7]. The questions fall into four groups:

Overall: a 0-to-10 likelihood to recommend, plus overall satisfaction with the last visit.
Logistics: ease of scheduling, how convenient the appointment time and office location were, lobby comfort, whether the appointment started on time, and a rating of the office staff.
The provider: a rating of the care, trust in the provider’s decisions, and how well the provider listened, answered questions, explained treatment options, and explained follow-up care, plus satisfaction with the time spent.
Open feedback: one question about what could have improved the visit.

This one was built for a medical office, so telehealth practices can drop the location and lobby questions, and practices without front-desk staff can drop the staff rating.

Length matters here too. SurveyMonkey reports completion rates of 99.5 percent for healthcare surveys with one to ten questions, 93.5 percent for 11 to 20 questions, and 89.5 percent for 21 or more [3]. Sixteen questions lands in the middle band, and a trimmed version moves you into the top one.

A nine-question version could keep: likelihood to recommend, overall satisfaction, ease of scheduling, on-time start, rating of care, how well the provider listened, how well questions were answered, satisfaction with time spent, and the open-ended question. Here’s how I’d reword a few of them for therapy:

“How well did your therapist listen to what you want from sessions?”
“How much do you trust your therapist to work in your best interests?”
“Is there anything we could do to make sessions or scheduling easier?”

On a standard plan, run it anonymously. Leave off the name and email fields, and add a short note asking people to keep clinical details out of the comment box. The healthcare template page says anonymous satisfaction surveys that collect no identifiable health information may not require HIPAA protections, and it recommends confirming with your compliance team [3]. If you want to tie responses to individual clients, that belongs in the Enterprise route in number 7.

Grab the template here: Patient Satisfaction Survey Template.

3. Collect testimonials the careful way

The testimonial form template has six fields, all marked required in the preview [6]. It asks for name, company name, and email, then a five-point rating of the product or service from excellent to poor. After that comes a yes-or-no question about whether the testimonial can be public, and an open-text question about how the person used the product or service and what changed.

This one adapts well. Swap the company name field for an optional first name or initials, and reword the rating to ask about their experience. Keep the permission question, and consider expanding it: “May we share your words on our website? Yes, Yes with my name removed, or No.”

For the open-text prompt, a workshop attendee or newsletter reader could answer something like: “What did you find most useful, and what changed for you afterward?” A prompt like that draws out outcomes and leaves clinical detail out of the conversation.

Two checks come first. Many licensing boards and ethics codes limit or prohibit soliciting testimonials from current clients, and some extend that to former clients, so read your own board’s rules. HIPAA adds a second layer, since a client’s name paired with the fact that they received care may fit the help center’s definition of protected health information [1]. A compliance advisor can tell you what authorization you’d need.

The route with the least friction gathers feedback from workshop attendees, newsletter subscribers, and colleagues who refer to you.

Grab the template here: Testimonial Form Template.

4. Track where your best referrals come from

Add “How did you hear about us?” to your onboarding form. Both intake templates already include it, so you may have this built in.

After a few months you’ll see which directories, referral partners, and social platforms bring in the clients you want, and you can put your marketing time there.

5. Help potential clients pick the right service

If you offer individual therapy, couples work, group programs, and consultation, a five-question quiz can point a visitor to the right fit and ask for an email address to deliver the result. SurveyMonkey keeps its quiz templates in their own category.

For the questions, ask what the person wants help with, whether they prefer one-on-one or group support, how often they hope to meet, and what they’ve tried before. Then map each pattern of answers to one of your services.

This works especially well if you’re moving warm referrals toward higher-fee, private-pay services, because the quiz lets potential clients tell you what level of support they’re ready for. They get clarity, and you get a lead who has already described what they need.

6. Ask your newsletter what to write next

A one-question poll (“What should I write about next?”) takes seconds to answer. Your content calendar then rests on real demand from the people already reading.

7. Run clinical intake on a HIPAA-enabled account

The patient intake form template is a lean eight-field form, and every field is marked required in the preview [5]. It asks for name, email, phone, address, date of birth, and gender identity, with choices for man, woman, non-binary, and self-describe. Then it asks how the person heard about you and their reason for seeing you today.

The template’s page says you can use it to collect medical histories, vaccination records, allergies, and emergency contacts, which means you add those fields yourself [5]. For a therapy practice, I’d swap in an emergency contact, prior therapy experience, and what the person hopes to work on. Route any questions about safety or risk through your own clinical protocol, because a form can’t alert you in real time.

Collecting this information requires an Enterprise account with HIPAA features enabled and a BAA in place. Because those accounts sit on the Enterprise plan, this route tends to suit group practices and clinics, and many solo therapists compare it against the intake tools already built into their EHR.

If you go this route, the help center lists several features that switch on: security reminders during sensitive actions, automatic logoff after 30 minutes of inactivity, and activity logging. It recommends the Web Link Collector over the Email Invitation Collector when you collect health information, and it suggests encrypting exported results files. It also states that a HIPAA-enabled account can’t be reverted, so moving to a lower plan later means opening a new account [1]. SurveyMonkey’s sales team handles details and demos.

Grab the template here: Patient Intake Form Template.

Browse more templates

The healthcare survey templates page lists more than two dozen options [3]. Read each template’s questions against your practice and your HIPAA status before you send anything to a client.

Where to start

Pick the task that eats the most of your time. For most practices, that’s onboarding, so open SurveyMonkey, start from the client intake template, cut it down to the six fields I listed, and send it to your next three new clients.

Before you collect any health information, confirm whether your practice needs a HIPAA-enabled account.

Sources

[1] SurveyMonkey. “HIPAA Compliance and SurveyMonkey.” https://help.surveymonkey.com/en/surveymonkey/policy/hipaa/

[2] SurveyMonkey. “HIPAA-Compliant Surveys & Forms.” https://www.surveymonkey.com/product/features/hipaa-compliance/

[3] SurveyMonkey. “Healthcare Survey Templates.” https://www.surveymonkey.com/categories/templates/healthcare-surveys/

[4] SurveyMonkey. “Client Intake Form Template.” https://www.surveymonkey.com/templates/client-intake-form-template/ (live preview: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/client_intake_form_template)

[5] SurveyMonkey. “Patient Intake Form Template.” https://www.surveymonkey.com/templates/patient-intake-form-template/ (live preview: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/patient_intake_form_template)

[6] SurveyMonkey. “Testimonial Form Template.” https://www.surveymonkey.com/templates/testimonial-form-template/ (live preview: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/testimonial_form_template)

[7] SurveyMonkey. “Patient Satisfaction Survey Template.” https://www.surveymonkey.com/templates/post-visit-patient-satisfaction-survey-template/ (live preview: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/post-visit-patient-satisfaction-survey-template)