Dental Treatment Consent
An end-to-end encrypted informed consent form for dental procedures — capture patient acknowledgment of risks, alternatives and a digital signature before treatment.
A consent form is not really written for the day it is signed. It is written for the day, possibly years later, when someone asks whether this patient understood what was about to happen to them. Everything in this template is chosen to answer that question — which is a different design brief from simply collecting a signature.
What the record has to prove, months later
- That the consent belongs to this patient, and not to a similarly named one — name and date of birth
- That it covers this procedure, described specifically rather than as 'treatment'
- That the material risks were put in plain language, and the alternatives named — including doing nothing
- That the patient's questions were asked and answered, rather than invited and left open
- That the signature is dated, and that the date sits before the procedure
The three moments that decide whether consent holds
Before the appointment
The patient reads the procedure description and the risks at home, without a clinician waiting. This is where genuine understanding is possible; a form handed over in the chair is signed under time pressure.
At the appointment
The conversation becomes a confirmation rather than a first introduction to the risks — shorter, calmer, and easier to document because the patient already has the vocabulary.
Afterwards
The signed record is filed against the patient record for the retention period, encrypted, and legible — which is where paper most often fails.
The generic-consent trap
A single consent form reused across every procedure is the most common weakness in a practice's records. If the form does not name the procedure and its specific material risks, it evidences that a signature was collected — not that this patient consented to this treatment.
Fields on this template
- Patient name and date of birth
- Name of the treating dentist
- Description of the procedure to be performed
- Confirmation that risks and alternatives have been explained
- Patient questions and answers
- Digital consent signature
Why paper consent fails at exactly the wrong moment
Paper consent forms do not fail on the day they are signed. They fail on the day they are needed, and they fail in three predictable ways: a required field was left blank and nobody noticed, the handwriting cannot be read back, or the sheet was filed under the wrong patient. Each of those is invisible until the moment the record is asked for, which is the moment it can no longer be corrected.
A structured digital form removes two of the three outright — required fields cannot be skipped, and typed records are legible by construction — and makes the third an indexing problem rather than a physical one. It also produces a dated record at the moment of signing rather than at the moment of filing.
Retention: ten years, then a deletion decision
Swiss law requires medical records to be retained for at least ten years, and some cantons extend that period for minors — check your cantonal rules rather than assuming the federal minimum. The part practices most often skip is the other end: a retention period is only meaningful if something actually happens when it expires. Decide now what deletes the record in year eleven, because a consent archive that only ever grows is itself a liability.
The signed consent as personal data
A signed consent form is a medical record, so it is special-category personal data under Article 9 GDPR and sensitive personal data under the nFADP — the document evidencing lawful processing is itself subject to the rules it evidences. End-to-end encryption answers the technical-measures requirement directly: the consent is encrypted in the patient's browser, and only your practice holds the Vault key that opens it.
What practices ask before switching
Is a digitally signed consent form valid in Switzerland?
For documenting clinical consent, yes — what the record has to show is that the patient was informed and agreed, and a dated, complete, legible digital record evidences that at least as well as a signature on paper. Note the boundary: the signature field captures a signature, it is not a qualified electronic signature under ZertES, and it should not be relied on where a specific legal form is prescribed.
Can the patient sign on their phone?
Yes. The signature field works on any touch-enabled device, so patients can sign at home, in the waiting room, or on a practice tablet at reception.
Should we keep one form or one per procedure?
One per procedure, and it is worth the duplication. 'Use template' creates an editable copy, so the practical pattern is to build a base version and then fork it per treatment — extraction, root canal, implant — each naming its own risks.
Who can read the signed consent?
Only your practice. Each submission is encrypted in the patient's browser before it is sent, and it stays unreadable in transit, at rest, and to us — we hold no key that opens it.
For the broader context, see our use case for dental and orthodontic practices, the patient registration template that precedes this consent, and our guide to informed consent in the digital age.