SOAP notes are a daily part of clinical life. They help you record symptoms, document assessments, and plan treatment in a clear and structured way. Many clinicians today are exploring artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT to make documentation faster and easier. While AI can save time and reduce stress, it also raises many questions about accuracy, safety, privacy, and legal requirements. This guide explains how clinicians are using ChatGPT for SOAP notes, what it can and cannot do, and why HIPAA compliance matters more than anything. The goal is to help healthcare providers make smart and safe choices when using AI tools in clinical practice.
What Are SOAP Notes and Why Do They Matter
SOAP notes are a standardized documentation method used by medical professionals. “SOAP” stands for Subjective, Objective, Assessment, and Plan. This format ensures that every patient encounter is documented clearly and logically. It helps you track progress, communicate with other providers, and protect yourself legally. Good documentation also supports billing, coding, and continuity of care.
In clinical settings, SOAP notes must be created quickly but also accurately. Providers often struggle with time pressure, especially during busy clinics, long hospital shifts, or back-to-back patient visits. AI tools like ChatGPT promise to help clinicians write notes faster, organize information clearly, and reduce the emotional burden of paperwork. Because of this, many clinicians are curious about whether ChatGPT can be used safely for structured medical documentation.
How Clinicians Use ChatGPT Today for SOAP Notes
Many clinicians use ChatGPT in informal or experimental ways. For example, some providers type short descriptions like symptoms, vitals, or diagnosis into ChatGPT and ask it to rewrite them in SOAP format. Others ask ChatGPT to make the note more concise, more complete, or easier to read. Some clinicians even use ChatGPT to help organize complex cases, summarize long histories, or rewrite their rough notes into full paragraphs.
However, all of these use cases require caution, especially when real patient information is involved. Most clinicians who use ChatGPT for notes use de-identified or synthetic information. Many do this because they know that ChatGPT is not HIPAA compliant and cannot legally receive protected health information (PHI). Still, even with de-identified text, ChatGPT can provide drafts, templates, explanations, and educational guidance that help clinicians improve their documentation skills.
Benefits of Using ChatGPT for SOAP Notes
Using ChatGPT for SOAP notes can be helpful for learning and drafting practice notes. Many clinicians explore it because it reduces effort and turns rough ideas into a cleaner structure. While it cannot be used with real patient data, it still offers several benefits when working with sample or dummy information.
Faster Documentation
ChatGPT can turn short bullet points into a full SOAP note in seconds. This is useful for clinicians who feel overwhelmed with documentation and want a quick way to see organized text. It helps reduce the feeling of being buried under paperwork.
Even though clinicians cannot enter PHI, practicing with sample notes helps build speed and confidence. It trains the mind to think in structured ways without spending extra time.
Clear and Organized Structure
ChatGPT is very good at organizing scattered information. Even if details are typed in random order, the AI arranges them neatly into Subjective, Objective, Assessment, and Plan. This helps students and new clinicians understand how a proper SOAP format should look.
Helpful for Learning SOAP Note Style
Many students use ChatGPT as a learning partner. They ask questions like, “How should I write a good assessment?” or “What belongs in the Objective section?” The AI gives examples and simple explanations that make learning easier.
These examples show new clinicians how to write clearly and avoid overthinking. ChatGPT can break down complex medical wording into simple sentences that feel more natural.
For early-career healthcare workers, this is a safe way to practice documentation without risking patient privacy. It becomes a training tool rather than a clinical tool.
Consistency Across Notes
ChatGPT naturally produces clean and consistent formatting. This is helpful for clinicians who want their documentation to look professional every time, even when they feel tired or rushed.
This consistency is also useful for teams. When multiple clinicians learn from the same style, reviewing notes becomes faster and smoother.
Reduces Writer’s Block
When clinicians know what happened but don’t know how to put it into words, ChatGPT can turn rough ideas into clear sentences. This helps break mental blocks and gives a quick starting point, especially during busy days or complex cases.
Limitations of Using ChatGPT for SOAP Notes
Even though ChatGPT has helpful features, it also comes with serious limitations that clinicians must understand clearly. Some of these limitations can affect the accuracy of documentation, while others can create legal risks and threaten patient safety. For this reason, ChatGPT should be used carefully and never for real clinical notes that contain patient information.
Not HIPAA Compliant
This is the biggest and most important limitation. ChatGPT is not HIPAA compliant, which means it cannot safely handle protected health information (PHI). Any identifiable patient data sent to ChatGPT may be stored, logged, or processed on servers that do not meet healthcare privacy standards. This creates a major legal risk for clinicians and organizations.
Because of this, clinicians are not allowed to enter patient names, visit dates, medical histories, medications, lab results, or any detail that could identify the patient. Even something simple like an age paired with a rare condition can be considered PHI. Using ChatGPT with real patient information can lead to privacy violations and heavy fines.
In short, ChatGPT can only be used with completely fake or de-identified information. If real data is used, it breaks HIPAA rules and puts both patients and clinicians at risk.
Risk of Inaccurate Medical Information
ChatGPT is not a medical decision-making tool, and it can sometimes generate incorrect or misleading medical content. The AI may misinterpret symptoms, mix up diagnoses, guess clinical details that were not provided, or even suggest unsafe treatments. This can be dangerous in clinical settings if a clinician relies on the AI’s wording without checking it carefully.
Because the model does not truly “understand” medical logic, it sometimes fills gaps with educated guesses. These small errors may look harmless, but they can impact patient care when included in a SOAP note that guides future decisions.
Cannot Replace Clinical Judgment
Although ChatGPT can write sentences, it cannot think like a human clinician. It does not see the patient, read body language, understand emotional cues, or recognize red flags that only trained professionals can catch. SOAP notes require real clinical judgment, and AI cannot replace the reasoning behind assessments or plans.
May Produce Generic Notes
Because ChatGPT generates text based on patterns, it often produces notes that sound generic, repetitive, or overly broad. This can make the documentation less useful for clinical review, follow-up care, and billing accuracy. A note that lacks detail or sounds the same for every patient can harm the quality of care.
Generic text also creates legal concerns. Documentation must reflect the unique condition and situation of each patient. If a note appears “AI-generated,” it may be questioned by auditors, supervisors, or legal professionals. This weakens the credibility of the record.
Over time, relying on generic text can also make it harder for clinicians to clearly document complex cases. Important details can get lost, and the note may fail to capture the full clinical picture.
No Integration With Medical Systems
ChatGPT cannot connect with EMRs, EHRs, scheduling systems, patient portals, or any clinical software. Everything must be copied and pasted manually. This extra step slows down the workflow and creates more room for human error.
Manual copying also increases the risk of accidental PHI exposure. Even one misplaced paste or wrong chat window can instantly lead to a privacy breach. This is why clinical tools must be integrated and secure — something ChatGPT cannot provide.
HIPAA Concerns When Using ChatGPT
HIPAA protects patient privacy and sets strict rules for how medical information must be stored, shared, and used. Because ChatGPT is a general AI tool and not built for healthcare, it does not meet these safety requirements. It also does not offer a Business Associate Agreement (BAA), which means it cannot legally manage protected health information (PHI). These issues make ChatGPT unsafe for real clinical documentation.
PHI cannot Be Entered Into ChatGPT
Clinicians are not allowed to enter any identifiable patient information into ChatGPT. This includes names, dates of birth, phone numbers, diagnoses, medications, lab values, or anything that can link data back to a real person. Sharing this type of information is a direct HIPAA violation.
Even when providers try to “de-identify” details, ChatGPT may still store conversation data on non-HIPAA servers. Because there is no guarantee of secure handling, even partial or unclear patient information is unsafe.
No Audit Trail or Secure Storage
Healthcare systems require audit trails, secure storage, and clear logging to protect patient data. ChatGPT provides none of these safeguards. There is no guaranteed encryption or controlled access, which leaves both patients and clinicians open to legal and privacy risks.
Data May Be Used for Model Training
Depending on account settings, ChatGPT may use your input to train or improve its AI models. For general use, this is normal — but for healthcare, it is a serious problem. PHI cannot be used for AI training under any circumstances.
Even enterprise versions of AI need strict access controls, special contracts, and secure environments. Most clinicians do not have access to these specialized setups, and they cannot rely on ChatGPT to safely handle sensitive information.
This means any real patient data typed into ChatGPT could be processed, stored, or reviewed in ways that break HIPAA rules — even if done unintentionally.
No Legal Protection for Providers
If a clinician enters PHI into ChatGPT and the information leaks or is mishandled, the responsibility falls on the clinician, not OpenAI. This puts providers at risk of large fines, disciplinary action, and even job-related consequences.
HIPAA violations can be extremely costly, and repeated issues could threaten a clinician’s license. Since ChatGPT is not designed for medical use, the platform offers no legal protection for healthcare workers.
Privacy Policies May Change Without Notice
HIPAA tools must follow stable, predictable compliance rules. ChatGPT’s privacy policies may change over time, and users have no guarantee of long-term safeguards. This makes the tool unreliable for any environment where patient safety and legal compliance are required.
Why ChatGPT Should Not Be Used for Real SOAP Notes
While ChatGPT is useful for learning and general writing, it is not safe for actual clinical documentation. The main reasons are:
Not HIPAA Compliant
The biggest reason ChatGPT cannot be used for real SOAP notes is that it is not HIPAA-compliant. This alone is enough to prevent it from being used in a medical environment. Without HIPAA protections, any patient information entered into the platform becomes unsafe and illegal.
Since no Business Associate Agreement (BAA) is available, clinicians cannot share any patient details with ChatGPT. Even a small part of a patient’s profile might be considered PHI, making the tool unusable for real medical documentation.
Risk of Incorrect Information
ChatGPT can generate text that sounds confident, but that does not mean it is medically accurate. In some cases, it may misinterpret symptoms, suggest the wrong diagnosis, or create an unclear assessment. A small mistake in a SOAP note can lead to real harm if another provider relies on it later.
AI models sometimes fill gaps with guesses, especially when information is missing. This can create misleading or unsafe content. A clinician must always carefully review anything generated by the AI.
Because medical documentation affects treatment, referrals, and medication decisions, accuracy cannot be optional. ChatGPT simply cannot guarantee safe clinical information.
No Responsibility or Liability
If ChatGPT creates inaccurate or unsafe content, the AI holds no responsibility. The clinician is fully accountable for anything written in the record. This puts the entire legal and ethical burden on the healthcare provider, making it too risky for real patient notes.
No Integration With EMRs
ChatGPT cannot connect to EMRs, EHRs, or any clinical system. Everything must be manually copied and pasted, which increases the chances of errors, misplaced text, or accidental sharing of PHI. These gaps create more work and more risk for the clinician.
Because clinical environments need secure and automated workflows, a tool that relies on manual transfers simply cannot support real patient documentation.
Can Create False Confidence
Because ChatGPT writes smoothly and confidently, some clinicians may trust it more than they should. This can lead to shortcuts in documentation or overreliance on AI wording. When dealing with patient care, false confidence can quickly turn into unsafe decisions.
What ChatGPT Can Be Safely Used For in Clinical Settings
Even though ChatGPT cannot receive PHI or create real patient notes, it can still be useful in safe and controlled situations. When the information is synthetic, fictional, or fully de-identified, clinicians and students can use ChatGPT as a learning tool. This allows them to practice documentation skills without risking privacy violations or breaking HIPAA rules.
Educational Practice
Students and new clinicians can use ChatGPT to practice writing SOAP structures with fake or sample cases. This helps them understand how information should be organized and how each part of the note works together.
Because the practice data is not connected to real patients, it is safe, legal, and useful for learning documentation style before working with actual clinical systems.
Drafting General Templates
ChatGPT is effective at building general templates that clinicians can use as guides. For example, it can create a SOAP note outline for conditions like hypertension, abdominal pain, diabetes follow-ups, or routine checkups. These templates help providers understand what should typically be included for different types of visits.
It can also generate specialty-specific formats, such as pediatric SOAP notes or mental health documentation styles. These drafts give clinicians a reference to start from when building their own templates.
Because these templates are generic and contain no real patient information, they can safely be created with ChatGPT for education and workflow planning.
Improving Writing Skills
Clinicians can ask ChatGPT how to write clearer, more structured documentation. The AI can explain what a good Assessment section looks like, how to write concise plans, or how to remove unnecessary wording. This is helpful for anyone wanting to improve their writing style.
Generating De-Identified Teaching Examples
Educators and trainers can use ChatGPT to create de-identified case studies, sample patient scenarios, and practice prompts. These materials are useful for classroom activities, simulations, and training sessions.
Since the cases are fictional, they avoid any risk of exposing PHI, making them safe for educational use.
Brainstorming Language or Structure
ChatGPT can rewrite text to make it clearer or more organized, as long as the text does not contain PHI. This is helpful for clinicians who want to practice better sentence structure or refine their documentation style in a safe way.
What is the Future of AI in Clinical Documentation
AI will play a huge role in healthcare documentation over the next decade. Many hospitals already use ambient clinical intelligence systems that record patient–provider conversations and create draft notes. Specialized clinical AI tools offer:
- Secure storage
- HIPAA compliance
- EHR integration
- Voice-to-note generation
- Medical terminology accuracy
- Consistent structure
These systems are built specifically for clinicians and are legally allowed to handle patient information.
General-purpose AI tools like ChatGPT cannot compete with dedicated healthcare tools when it comes to compliance, security, and accuracy. The future of clinical documentation requires AI that is purpose-built for medical environments—not generic AI.
Why Clinicians Need a HIPAA-Compliant Alternative
Clinicians need a HIPAA-compliant alternative because real patient information requires the highest level of protection. AI tools used in healthcare must follow strict privacy standards to keep patient data safe at every step. This includes secure storage, encrypted communication, and controlled access so that only authorized people can view sensitive records. A HIPAA-compliant tool must also offer a Business Associate Agreement (BAA), which creates a legal guarantee that the platform will protect the data according to federal law. Without these protections, clinicians cannot legally use the tool for any documentation that contains patient details. This is the biggest reason ChatGPT cannot be used for real SOAP notes—it simply does not meet the basic legal requirements needed in healthcare.
Another major reason clinicians need a compliant system is the need for medical-grade accuracy and reliability. Documentation plays a critical role in diagnosing, treating, and following up with patients. If the tool generating notes is not built specifically for healthcare, it may produce errors, misunderstand key information, or write notes that are too general. Clinical AI tools are trained on medical language, common patterns of care, and structured documentation formats, which helps them generate clearer and more accurate notes than general chat-based models. These specialized tools also provide audit trails so clinicians can see who accessed the data, when it was accessed, and what was changed. This level of transparency is required in medical settings and protects both the clinician and the patient.
Also, clinicians need an alternative that integrates smoothly with existing clinical systems. HIPAA-compliant AI tools can connect directly with EMRs and EHRs, making it easier to save notes, retrieve past records, and keep everything in one secure place. This improves workflow, reduces manual copying, and lowers the risk of exposing patient data through mistakes. Tools built specifically for healthcare also maintain consistent encryption, follow medical documentation standards, and offer secure cloud environments designed for clinical use. In every one of these areas—security, accuracy, workflow, and legal protection—specialized healthcare AI tools outperform ChatGPT by a wide margin. For these reasons, clinicians must rely on a HIPAA-safe, medically focused alternative when using AI for real patient documentation.
Skriber: A HIPAA-Ready Alternative to ChatGPT for SOAP Notes
If you need an AI tool for real SOAP notes, you cannot legally or safely use ChatGPT. Instead, you need a platform designed specifically for clinicians and for protected medical data.
Skriber is built exactly for this purpose.
100% HIPAA Ready
Skriber is fully HIPAA-ready, which means it is built to safely handle protected health information (PHI). Unlike general AI tools, it offers secure, encrypted storage and follows strict data-protection standards used in healthcare. This gives clinicians confidence that their documentation remains safe at all times.
The platform includes strong access controls, audit logs, and other safeguards that prevent unauthorized data access. These features are essential in any medical environment where patient privacy is a top priority.
Skriber also provides Business Associate Agreements (BAAs), which are required for legal clinical use. This alone makes it a safe and compliant alternative to ChatGPT for real documentation.
Built for Clinical Documentation
Skriber is designed to create real clinical notes, not general writing. It can generate SOAP notes, progress notes, clinical summaries, HPI sections, assessment and plan segments, objective findings, and full, detailed narratives. This makes it useful for many specialties and clinical settings.
Because Skriber understands medical vocabulary and common documentation patterns, the notes it produces feel more accurate, more precise, and more clinically meaningful than anything generated by a general AI chatbot.
Ambient Voice-to-Note AI
With patient consent, Skriber can listen to patient–provider conversations and automatically create accurate SOAP notes. This helps clinicians save hours of writing time each week, reduces burnout, and lets them focus more on the patient instead of paperwork.
Higher Accuracy Than Generic AI Models
Skriber uses AI models trained specifically for healthcare documentation. This allows it to capture the small details, clinical reasoning patterns, and specialty-specific notes that general-purpose models often miss. As a result, the notes are more structured, more accurate, and better aligned with real medical standards.
Because the AI is tuned for clinical use, it reduces the chances of incorrect or unsafe information appearing in the documentation. This makes it far more reliable for everyday practice.
Built-In Features Clinicians Need
Skriber includes features that support real clinical workflows, such as templates, auto-summaries, quick editing tools, and specialty-specific note formats. These tools help clinicians move faster while keeping notes clear and complete.
It also provides a secure cloud environment where notes can be safely stored and accessed. This is essential for keeping PHI protected and complying with healthcare regulations.
The interface is clean and simple, making it easy for clinicians to review, edit, and finalize notes without technical frustration. These features are not available in ChatGPT because it is not designed for clinical work.
Safe for Real Patient Information
The biggest difference is simple: Skriber can legally handle PHI, and ChatGPT cannot. This makes Skriber the safer, smarter, and more compliant choice for clinicians who need AI support for real SOAP notes.
The Bottom Line:
ChatGPT is a powerful AI tool that can help with learning, practicing, and drafting SOAP notes using fake information, but it is not suitable for real clinical documentation. It is not HIPAA compliant, it can generate incorrect or unsafe medical content, and it is not designed for the strict standards required in clinical environments. These issues make ChatGPT risky for actual patient notes, and using it with real medical information could lead to serious privacy and safety problems. Because of this, clinicians should rely on a secure, healthcare-focused platform like Skriber. Skriber offers HIPAA protection, higher accuracy, medical-grade features, ambient voice-to-note tools, and a reliable environment made specifically for clinicians. For real SOAP notes, real patients, and real legal requirements, Skriber is the safe, compliant, and professional choice. ChatGPT is useful for learning and practice, but not for real clinical documentation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best AI for SOAP notes?
The best AI for SOAP notes is Skriber, because it is built for healthcare, fully HIPAA compliant, and safe for real patient information. Unlike general tools like ChatGPT, Skriber is designed specifically for clinicians, understands medical language, and can turn voice or text into clear, accurate, and structured SOAP notes. It keeps patient data secure, reduces documentation time, and provides medical-grade features made for real clinical workflows.
Can ChatGPT do SOAP notes?
ChatGPT can write SOAP notes, but only for practice or fake cases. It is not safe for real patient notes because it is not HIPAA compliant. You cannot enter any real patient information into ChatGPT.
For real clinical documentation, you should use a HIPAA-ready tool like Skriber, not ChatGPT.
How to use AI for SOAP notes?
You can use AI for SOAP notes safely by choosing a tool made for healthcare, like Skriber. Skriber is HIPAA compliant and designed for real patient information, so it can create accurate and secure clinical notes.
With Skriber, you can:
- Record or transcribe your session — Speak during the visit or record the session to upload after the appointment.
- Let Skriber generate the SOAP note — The AI organizes everything into clear Subjective, Objective, Assessment, and Plan sections.
- Review and edit — You simply check the draft and make any updates.
- Save securely — Skriber stores everything in a HIPAA-safe environment.
Skriber makes SOAP notes faster, clearer, and fully compliant, making it the best AI choice for real clinical documentation.
Dr. Connor Yost is an Internal Medicine resident at Creighton University School of Medicine in Arizona and an emerging leader in clinical innovation. He currently serves as Chief Medical Officer at Skriber, where he helps shape AI-powered tools that streamline clinical documentation and support physicians in delivering higher-quality care. Dr. Yost also works as a Strategic Advisor at Doc2Doc, lending his expertise to initiatives that improve financial wellness for physicians and trainees.
His professional interests include medical education, workflow redesign, and the responsible use of AI in healthcare. Dr. Yost is committed to building systems that allow clinicians to spend more time with patients and less on administrative tasks. Outside of medicine, he enjoys photography, entrepreneurship, and family life.
