How LocalScribe Works with TherapyNotes

If you use TherapyNotes in private practice, LocalScribe can often fit more directly into your workflow than it does with looser, more field-built platforms. TherapyNotes already has a fairly standardized note system, with built-in templates and structured fields for common document types, and it explicitly supports note templates designed for behavioral health workflows. That means many clinicians can start with an existing LocalScribe template for standard note types, then move to a custom LocalScribe template only when their TherapyNotes setup is more specialized or customized.

The main setup choice

For standard TherapyNotes progress notes, built-in LocalScribe templates are often a reasonable starting point. TherapyNotes’ current pre-built progress-note options include SOAP, DAP, BIRP, and the default TherapyNotes progress note, and practices can now also create and customize their own progress-note templates from the Library by rearranging components, removing fields, renaming items, and creating new sections.

So the setup is fairly simple. If you are using standard SOAP, DAP, or BIRP in TherapyNotes, start with the matching LocalScribe built-in template. If your practice has customized the TherapyNotes note structure, build a LocalScribe custom template that mirrors it, including nested subheaders if needed, then generate the full draft in LocalScribe and paste the content into the matching TherapyNotes sections.

Progress notes

This is the easiest fit. TherapyNotes supports standard SOAP, DAP, and BIRP progress-note templates, and its progress notes also include structured sections such as Current Mental Status, with additional plan and frequency elements in the note workflow. For many clinicians, that means a LocalScribe SOAP, DAP, or BIRP template is enough. If your TherapyNotes progress note has been customized, mirror that customized structure instead.

These custom-template examples show the section headers and the instructions you would give the model for each section.

A simple LocalScribe SOAP setup for TherapyNotes could look like this:

Subjective: Include the client’s reported symptoms, concerns, updates, and relevant self-report since the last session.

Objective: Include observable behavior, mental status findings, participation, affect, speech, and other session-based observations.

Assessment: Summarize the clinical meaning of the session, response to interventions, current functioning, and barriers to progress.

Risk or safety updates: Include any relevant risk findings, protective factors, and meaningful changes in safety status.

Plan: Include recommendations, interventions to continue, follow-up steps, and expected frequency if relevant.

Intake

TherapyNotes’ Intake Note is more structured than a generic intake narrative. Their support documentation describes it as a full biopsychosocial evaluation that includes the presenting problem, a mental status exam, and history, and it can also pull information from the Client History Form into the intake workflow. Because intake structure tends to be more detailed and more variable across clinicians, this is usually a strong LocalScribe custom-template use case.

A practical LocalScribe intake template for TherapyNotes might use:

Presenting problem: Summarize why the client is seeking treatment now, including major symptoms, concerns, and relevant quotes.

Current mental status: Document the mental status findings observed during the intake.

Relevant history: Include psychiatric, medical, social, family, trauma, substance, and prior treatment history relevant to care.

Objective content: Document what occurred during the intake session, including rapport building, informed consent, policy review, and other clinically relevant session content.

Risk and safety: Document current and relevant historical risk factors, protective factors, and safety-related findings.

Initial impression and plan: Summarize the initial clinical picture and recommended next steps.

Treatment plans

Treatment plans in TherapyNotes are structured enough that they are usually better handled with a LocalScribe custom template than a generic plan format. TherapyNotes requires Diagnosis, Presenting Problem, Treatment Goal, and Prescribed Frequency of Treatment to save a treatment plan, and goals, objectives, and interventions are central to that workflow.

A useful LocalScribe treatment-plan template might use:

Diagnosis: State the diagnosis or problem area being addressed.

Presenting problem: Describe the clinical issue or pattern the treatment plan is targeting.

Treatment goal: Write the broad treatment goal in clear clinical language.

Objectives: List measurable or observable objectives that show progress toward the goal.

Treatment strategy or intervention: Describe the interventions, treatment approach, or services planned.

Prescribed frequency of treatment: Document expected session frequency or service frequency.

Consultation notes

Consultation notes are simpler. TherapyNotes describes this note type as a note header, diagnosis fields, and one blank text field. That makes it a good fit either for a very simple LocalScribe consultation template or for a custom template based on the headings you already tend to type into that blank note body.

A practical consultation template might use:

Reason for consultation: State why the consultation occurred and what question or issue was addressed.

Relevant background: Include only the history or context needed to understand the consultation.

Clinical discussion or findings: Summarize the substance of the consultation, including relevant impressions or recommendations.

Next steps: Document referrals, coordination, follow-up, or other recommendations.

What to put into LocalScribe

Use the same source material you would normally rely on while writing manually. That can include shorthand notes, observations, session details, intake information, prior history, dictation, ambient recording, and attachments such as forms, screeners, referrals, or prior documents. For intake in particular, it helps to include history information that is clinically important but may not be easy to reconstruct from memory later. LocalScribe is built to turn that source material into a structured draft, and its custom-template and test-reference tools are especially useful once documentation becomes more specialized.

A quick note for specialized workflows

For more specialized TherapyNotes workflows, including assessment-heavy work, custom terminology and test-reference tools can help keep the draft closer to the language your documentation requires. TherapyNotes also uses a dedicated Psychological Evaluation note type for testing-related documentation, which is another example of a workflow where a custom LocalScribe structure may fit better than a general note template.

Bottom line

For TherapyNotes, built-in LocalScribe templates are often a good starting point for standard SOAP, DAP, or BIRP progress notes. Intake notes, treatment plans, consultation workflows with preferred internal headings, and customized progress notes are better handled with a LocalScribe custom template that mirrors the TherapyNotes structure you actually use.