Legal Basics for Health Coaches & Holistic Practitioners

Running a health and wellness practice is a big responsibility. Before you even show up for your clients, it’s important to lay a solid foundation down for your business so that you can channel your focus on client work. Believe it or not, legal forms and agreements can provide a solid backbone for your practice. They help to inform your clients of the nature of your services and scope of practice, define the terms and conditions, and protect your business.

What Forms Are Needed for Your Nutrition Practice?

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by legal considerations when setting up and building your practice? You’re not alone, and that’s why we’ve invited Lisa Fraley, Attorney and Legal Coach, to simplify the law for you, whether you’re a health coach, nutritionist, or licensed practitioner.

In this 2-part series, Lisa educates us on the importance of having a legal framework in place to protect your business and establish a strong relationship with your clients.

What We Covered

Part I: Legal Basics for Health Coaches & Holistic Practitioners

• Why it’s crucial for you to protect yourself through legal documents
• 4 Main legal forms you need in your practice
• Why legally protecting yourself is mutually beneficial for yourself and your clients
• How to make this process easy and approachable!
• How HIPAA applies to you and your business (and yes, Practice Better is a HIPAA-compliant platform!)

Part II: Legal Basics for Health Coaches & Holistic Practitioners Applied in Practice Better

• How to set up the 4 main legal forms that Lisa recommends within Practice Better
• A brief discussion about Short Disclaimers and how to use them
• How to share these legal documents with your clients directly from the platform and collect their signatures before delivering your services

Creating Consent Forms and Waivers in Practice Better

Waivers, Client Agreements, Informed Consent Forms and Terms of Use can all be created and housed in Practice better, using the forms and waivers feature. No more uploading PDFs for your client to review, print, sign and scan back!

You have the ability to create these forms from scratch, or you can use the form template option and build them out from there.  For example, are you a health coach ready to set up new clients? To save some time, build off a pre-built Practice Better template to create a customized coaching client agreement template! Note that these templates are provided purely as examples, and we recommend you make modifications according to your individual needs and scope of practice. These templates do not constitute legal advice; please check with your local regulator to know what’s necessary to protect you and your clients.

How to Add An Online Consent Form Signature to Consent Forms

Lisa tells us that the Client Agreement is a document that both client and health coach or practitioner should sign. Practice Better makes it easy for clients to provide an online consent form signature! Using our form builder, you have the ability to create a client signature block. As well, you can create your own signature as the practice owner to pre-sign the Agreement before you send it off to your client for their electronic signature.

Practice Better allows you to require clients to sign forms prior to booking a service or program with you, or alternatively after a booking has been confirmed. You can set up an automation easily in the platform to reduce your workload and ensure that every client completes your legal documents!

Finally, Terms and Conditions, such as a short medical disclaimer, can be reiterated to clients when they’re booking services with you via the Disclaimers feature. While Lisa recommends clearly outlining terms in a comprehensive Client Agreement, the disclaimers feature can be a helpful tool to remind clients of the parameters of your services.

Better Business Conversations: Lisa Fraley

Each month, our Business Success Coaches host an interactive BBC YouTube Live, bridging expert advice and Practice Better technology. Take a moment to watch Session 1 to learn the Legal Basics, and Session 2 on applying these foundations within Practice Better.

Video 1 Duration: 33 minutes

Video 2 Duration: 38 minutes

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to be notified about our next BBC!

About Lisa

Lisa is a Legal Coach® & Holistic Lawyer® for health coaches and holistic practitioners. Formerly a corporate attorney in the health care space, Lisa became a Life Coach in 2003 through CoachU and became a certified Health Coach through the Institute of Integrative Nutrition in 2012. Lisa has uniquely blended her legal expertise with her talents as a coach to help hundreds of health and wellness professionals become legally covered.

Connect with Lisa: Website | Instagram