Should a physical therapist use an AI scribe for evals or daily notes?

Evals. Physical therapists across five threads landed in the same place without comparing notes: the tool earns its keep on the initial evaluation, where the subjective is long and the patient education is worth capturing, and it adds little on daily notes, which most PTs type faster themselves. One PT cut eval documentation from about twenty minutes to five. Same PT: daily notes were never the burden.

Why evals and not daily notes?

An eval is forty minutes of history, education and reasoning. A daily note is a few lines that a good template already fills. A PT with seventeen votes said it flatly: I found out quickly that I am faster at typing it. The same clinician said the PTs use it for evals and find it middling for dailies.

Another put a number on it: for anyone seeing eight or more evals a week, it is worth it. Below that, the daily notes were never the problem. This is the reverse of therapy, where the opposite is true in therapy.

What about the objective section?

It hears and does not see. Several PTs said it swaps left and right when a patient gestures, guesses which side a strength grade belongs to, and turns it hurts when I do this into nothing at all, because it cannot see what this was. One said it inserts a date when a patient says about two months ago. The fix is to narrate the exam: say the side, the movement and the number out loud, every time. Several PTs simply keep the objective section for themselves.

What about a busy gym?

It hears everyone. A PT who uses the tool said that in a crowded gym it picks up other patients and other therapists, which is another reason most reserve it for evals in a room with the door closed.

What about the assessment?

Explain it to the patient. One PT wraps up complex evals by talking the patient through the reasoning and the plan. Typed out, that took thirty minutes. With the tool listening, it comes back mostly right and takes five minutes to edit. The tool cannot write your assessment. It can catch you saying it.

What should a clinic owner decide?

Buy it for evals and progress notes, and do not expect it to change daily notes. Count evals per week per therapist before signing anything. And ask the vendor, in writing, how long audio and transcripts are kept, because one PT assistant in the thread wanted to know and nobody at the clinic could tell her.

The short version

Use an AI scribe on evals, narrate the objective out loud, and keep daily notes yours. Solanto will write the history and leave the judgment to you, in Cloud mode or in Private Mode, where the note never leaves your device.

The price is on the page, not behind a call. Early access is open: solanto.ai/pricing

Ask the PT who loves theirs how many evals they do a week. The answer explains the love.