The questions clinics actually ask

The digital patient intake space is crowded. Here's where CarelinkMD is different:

• 48-hour turnaround. Upload your existing PDF intake forms; we have your branded patient-facing portal live in 48 business hours. No developer, no weeks-long implementation.
• EHR-agnostic. We don't require a specific EHR. Completed forms arrive as PDFs you import into your existing workflow — no deep integration cycle.
• Branded per clinic. Your logo, your colors, your URL. Not a generic-looking form tool.
• BAA at signup. No separate legal cycle before your first live form.

Where we're not a fit: if you need deep EHR writeback today, a full patient portal (labs, visit summaries), or scheduling + payments in one platform, we'll honestly tell you to look elsewhere. Those are on our roadmap, not shipped.

A short checklist we'd run if we were the buyer:

• Time to first live form. Days, weeks, or months?
• Does it require EHR integration? If yes, which ones — and what happens if yours isn't on the list.
• HIPAA posture. Does the vendor sign a BAA? Is there a security page with specifics, or just a badge?
• Data residency. Where is PHI stored? Who has access on the vendor side?
• Subprocessor disclosure. Will they tell you who sits in the data chain?
• Export. If you cancel, how do you get your data out?
• Breach notification SLA. HIPAA requires 60 days to patients; a serious vendor will notify you in 24–72 hours.
• Price structure. Per-form, per-patient, per-location, per-provider? What happens at the limit?
• Pilot option. Can you run it on one provider or one location before committing across the clinic?

If you're considering a switch, here's what we'd ask your current vendor:

• Can we export every patient submission in its original format before cancellation?
• How long is our data retained after we leave? Who controls destruction?
• What is your contractual breach notification window?
• How many form changes are included? What do out-of-scope changes cost?
• If we add a location, does the price change mid-contract?

These questions surface the hidden costs that usually show up at renewal — not to steer you one way, just to make the decision clear-eyed.

You're ready if most of these are true:

• Your patients already use email or text to communicate with your clinic
• Your front desk spends meaningful time on paper forms and data entry
• You've had at least one claim denial from illegible handwriting
• Your existing intake forms are roughly stable — you don't redesign them every month

You're probably not ready if: your patient demographic is almost exclusively elderly without email/text literacy, your intake forms change weekly, or you're mid-EHR migration. In those cases we'd say “wait six months, then talk to us.”

Not with CarelinkMD today. We're EHR-agnostic: completed intake arrives as PDFs that your staff imports into your existing EHR intake workflow — the same workflow your coordinators already use for paper forms. No integration cycle, no EHR-vendor sign-off, no multi-month project.

Direct EHR writeback is on our Enterprise roadmap. If writeback into your specific EHR is a dealbreaker for your clinic, contact sales so we can scope it.

Yes. Forms are grouped into categories. A category can be assigned to specific staff, specific locations, or surfaced based on which portal link the patient receives. If your OB/GYN patients need one intake and your urgent-care patients need another, that's how it's built.

Yes. Each clinic has a branding page — upload your logo, set your brand colors. Multi-clinic organizations on Professional or Enterprise plans can brand each location distinctly.

Yes. Role-based access control ships with Admin, Coordinator, and Staff roles. You can create custom roles with specific permissions — view submissions, edit forms, manage billing, manage staff, etc. — per clinic.

Yes. Forms can include photo-upload fields. Patients capture their insurance card (or ID, or referral) from their phone camera; the image comes back in the completed PDF along with the rest of the intake.

Yes. Your patients' data is encrypted in transit and at rest, stored only in US regions, and every access is logged. We operate as a HIPAA Business Associate under an executed BAA.

The BAA is signed on our side by an authorized officer of Expert Business Consulting LLC (CarelinkMD's operating entity) at the time your clinic registers. You receive a copy by email after signup; it's also available in your dashboard billing settings.

Deeper detail — encryption specifics, key management, audit logging, subprocessors, breach notification SLA — lives on our Security page →

Your practice keeps running. In the rare case of an extended outage, your existing paper intake fallback is always available — we explicitly design for paper to stay in your workflow as a backup, especially during the first month after rollout.

On our side, RTO target is 4 hours and RPO target is 1 hour. Azure-managed Postgres backups are continuous with 7-day retention. The operational posture is on our Security page →

Yes, and we recommend it. The Starter plan is single-location by design so you can prove out the workflow on one site before expanding. Within a clinic, you can also assign the digital intake flow to one provider initially and keep paper for everyone else until you're confident. Switching to Professional when you're ready to go multi-location is self-serve.

A lot of patient portals bolted on intake as an afterthought. The patient experience tends to show it: heavy login flow, generic look, the same design for a dermatology intake and a psychiatry intake.

CarelinkMD is just the intake layer, which lets us design for that one job: patient arrives at a branded URL, answers what your clinic specifically asks, signs, done. If your existing portal is doing intake well and you're happy, we're probably not worth the add. If patients complain that they “couldn't log in to fill their forms,” we probably are.

Your data belongs to your clinic — not to us. On cancellation you can export every patient submission as PDF and every form definition as JSON from the dashboard before your plan ends.

We retain the data for a short dispute-resolution window after cancellation, then hard-delete. Certificate of destruction is available on request. Full retention policy is on our Security page →

Starter $299/mo (1 location, up to 10 forms, 5 staff). Professional $699/mo (up to 3 locations, up to 50 forms, 20 staff). Enterprise is custom. 14-day free trial on self-serve plans. Full detail on Pricing →

Yes. Annual billing is $249/mo for Starter and $599/mo for Professional — roughly 15% off. Enterprise is custom. You can switch from monthly to annual anytime from the billing dashboard.

Nothing breaks. Existing forms keep working. You're prompted to either upgrade to Professional (50 forms) or purchase the “Additional Forms” add-on ($149 one-time per form, permanent — survives plan changes). No surprise overage charges.

Self-serve plans (Starter, Professional) are credit-card-only through Stripe. Enterprise plans accept ACH, wire, and invoice-based billing with Net-30 or Net-60 terms. If you need invoice billing on a non-Enterprise plan, contact sales and we'll discuss.

Per-location and per-staff-seat, not per-provider. Starter is 1 location / 5 staff. Professional is up to 3 locations / 20 staff. Enterprise is unlimited. This matters for multi-provider clinics: you don't pay more because you have 7 doctors versus 2, only if your staff count crosses the seat limit or you expand to additional physical locations.

Monthly plans cancel anytime from the billing dashboard — no penalty, no phone call. You keep access through the end of the paid period. Annual plans prorate refunds per our Terms of Service. 14-day free trial is no-obligation; if you cancel before the trial ends, no charge.