Questionnaires & the paperwork manager

Two features, one pre-visit flow

Questionnaires and Previsit Paperwork are separate full-page workspaces because they answer different questions, but the patient sees them as one connected experience the day they book. Each one opens in its own tab inside Hero EMR, so you can leave it open while you work.

Browse and customize the questionnaire library

Before you assign questionnaires to visit types, decide which ones you want available. The library sidebar lists up to three groups, in this order: Your questionnaires (the current physician's personal versions), Organization questionnaires (cloned and edited by anyone in the org), and Standardized library (system-provided instruments like PHQ-9, GAD-7, AUDIT-C). Empty groups are hidden, so on a brand-new org you will only see Standardized library until something is cloned. Only items in Your questionnaires are editable; everything else must be cloned first.

1. Open Settings > Questionnaires. From the top toolbar, open Settings, then choose Questionnaires. The Questionnaires workspace opens as its own full-page tab. Its left rail has two entries — Visit Rules (selected by default) and Library.
2. Click Library in the left rail. The library opens with a sidebar of all available questionnaires, grouped by ownership. Use the search box or toggle Include inactive if you want to see deactivated entries.
3. Preview a standardized questionnaire. Click any entry to load it in the main panel. Preview mode shows the short name, category, full question wording, response options, and required flags as the patient will see them.
4. Clone before editing. Standardized and organization questionnaires are read-only. To customize one, click Duplicate to edit. The cloned copy lands in Your questionnaires and unlocks every field.
5. Edit metadata and questions. Switch to Edit mode. The metadata fields are Short name, Category (depression, anxiety, mental health, substance use, trauma, pain, cognitive, functional, perinatal, developmental, preventive, or custom), Display name, Description, Estimated minutes, and Default frequency days.
6. Add or reorder questions. Each question card has a type (likert, single select, multi-select, text, number, boolean, scale, score, or instruction), a required flag, the question text, and — for choice-style types — value/label pairs. Use the up/down buttons to reorder.
7. Configure scoring (optional). For instruments that compute a score, paste or edit the scoring config JSON. Leave it blank for purely informational forms.
8. Click Save & publish. Every save publishes a new version. The footer reminds you that in-flight assignments stay intact — patients already on an older version finish on that version, and new assignments pick up the latest.

Assign questionnaires to visit types

Rules are per physician and live on the Visit Rules view of the Questionnaires workspace. A rule answers two questions: when to send (a visit is booked, on a recurring schedule, or the moment the patient registers for the portal) and which questionnaires to send. Booking rules take optional filters that further narrow when the rule fires (age, sex, telehealth vs in-person, ICD-10 code on the problem list, preferred language, booking source, portal status, or days until the visit).

1. Open Settings > Questionnaires and stay on Visit Rules. Your existing rules are listed on the left and the editor is on the right.
2. Click New to start a fresh rule, or pick an existing rule to edit. Existing rules show their status badge (Active or Paused), questionnaire count, and a one-line filter summary.
3. Choose When. The When card has three choices: When a visit is booked (sends as soon as the appointment goes on the calendar), On a schedule (recurring — no visit required), and At patient registration (assigns and sends a reminder the moment the patient registers for the portal — no visit required). Pick When a visit is booked for the classic visit-type rule.
4. Pick the Visit Type and give the rule a Rule Name. Name it something you will recognize later (for example, "New patient intake questionnaires"). The visit type dropdown is populated from your physician scheduling config, so set up visit types first if the list is empty.
5. Pick the questionnaires. Use the search to filter the library and check off the screeners you want for that visit type. Selected items appear as removable pills at the top of the section.
6. Add optional filters. Skip this section entirely to apply the questionnaires to every patient on that visit type. Or narrow with any combination of: minimum/maximum age, visit mode (Any/Telehealth only/In-person only), days until visit, patient sex, portal status, preferred languages, booking sources, and problem-list ICD-10 codes.
7. Leave the Active checkbox on (or clear it to pause). It sits in the editor header row beside the rule name, not down with the filters. Pausing keeps the rule definition but stops new patients from triggering it.
8. Click Create Rule (or Save Rule if editing). The rule applies to all future bookings of that visit type immediately. Existing scheduled visits are not retroactively assigned.

Recurring (scheduled) rules

Choose On a schedule in the When card when a questionnaire should recur on a cadence rather than ride along with an appointment — periodic PHQ-9 monitoring, an annual functional screener, a quarterly medication-adherence check.

1. Click On a schedule. The description reads "Recurring, e.g. every 3 months — visits not required."
2. Pick an interval. Four presets are offered — Monthly, Every 3 months, Every 6 months, and Yearly — or type your own value in the Every <n> days box. Custom intervals must be a whole number of days between 1 and 1095.
3. Pick the questionnaires and save. A daily sweep evaluates scheduled rules across every active patient in the organization; there is no appointment involved, so patients receive the questionnaire whether or not they have anything booked.

Rules that fire at patient registration

Choose At patient registration when your intake screeners should reach a new patient the moment they get portal access, before anything is on the calendar. The choice describes itself: "Assign and send a reminder the moment the patient registers for the portal — no visit required."

1. Click At patient registration. The Visit Type field disappears — a registration has no appointment to match against — and Rule Name widens to fill the row. Leave the name blank and Hero EMR saves the rule as New patient registration questionnaires.
2. Pick the questionnaires. The Send card states what the patient will get: "These questionnaires are assigned as soon as the patient registers for the portal, and the patient gets one reminder listing them together with any registration paperwork."
3. Narrow with patient filters if you want to. Minimum Age, Maximum Age, Patient Sex, Preferred Languages, and Problem List ICD-10 Codes still apply. Leave them blank to include every patient who registers.
4. Save. The rule reads At patient registration in the rule list, and the editor footer repeats the one thing to remember: "Registration rules run when a patient completes portal registration — they don't apply to patients who are already registered."

Open the Previsit Paperwork manager

Previsit Paperwork is org-wide. One admin builds the consent forms, financial policies, and other documents patients sign, and every physician in the organization shares them. Hero EMR ships with a set of read-only starter templates you can duplicate as a starting point.

1. Sign in as an org admin. Previsit Paperwork is admin-only end to end. The Previsit Paperwork entry is not shown in the Admin menu for non-admins, and the underlying template list refuses the request with a 403 even if the page is reached directly. There is no read-only mode.
2. Open Admin > Previsit Paperwork. The Previsit Paperwork workspace opens as its own full-page tab, with a sidebar of templates and a large editor pane. The sidebar splits into Your templates (org-owned, editable) and Starter templates (read-only, duplicate to customize).
3. Browse the starter templates. Hero EMR includes vetted starters for HIPAA NPP, consent to treat, financial policy + AOB, telehealth consent, no-show / cancellation policy, photography consent, ROI authorization, controlled substance agreement, and more.
4. Pick a starting point. Click any starter and use Duplicate to edit to copy it into Your templates, or click New template to start from a blank slate. A duplicate always arrives inactive — it assigns nothing to anybody until you turn Active on in §2.6.
5. Send a published form on demand with Send to a patient. The sidebar's second button opens Send paperwork to a patient ("The patient signs it from the portal — no appointment needed"). Pick the form, search the patient by name, MRN, or DOB, and click Send form. It lands in the patient's Forms to sign queue with no appointment attached. Forms can also be ordered from inside an encounter so they show up alongside that visit's other orders.