How LocalScribe Works with Valant

If you use Valant in private practice, LocalScribe fits best as a drafting step that matches the documentation workflow you already use inside Valant. Valant is built specifically for behavioral health and supports structured note formats including SOAP, DAP, BIRP, narrative, and custom templates, along with linked treatment-plan and intake workflows. That makes it a hybrid platform. Some clinicians can start with a built-in LocalScribe template and be close right away. Others will get a better fit by building a LocalScribe custom template that mirrors their Valant structure more closely.

The main setup choice

If you are using Valant’s standard note formats, start with the closest built-in LocalScribe template. If your practice uses custom note templates, or you want closer alignment to a specific internal workflow, build a LocalScribe custom template with the same headers, order, and section logic you use in Valant. Valant explicitly supports structured documentation in SOAP, DAP, BIRP, narrative, and custom templates, so both approaches are reasonable depending on how standardized your workflow already is.

Progress notes

This is often the easiest fit. Valant supports SOAP, DAP, BIRP, narrative, and custom note templates, so built-in LocalScribe note templates may work well for many clinicians. But once a practice has its own Valant template structure, it usually makes more sense to mirror that structure in LocalScribe so the draft transfers into the chart with less cleanup.

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

A practical custom progress-note template in LocalScribe might use:

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.

Progress toward goals: Briefly note movement, setbacks, or unchanged patterns related to the current treatment plan.

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

Plan: Include homework, follow-up steps, referrals, frequency, and the next clinical focus.

Intake

Valant has dedicated consent and intake forms, and its intake process is framed as more than basic paperwork. It includes symptom screening and preliminary assessment before or around the first appointment. That makes intake a strong LocalScribe custom-template category when you want your narrative draft to match how intake data is actually organized in Valant.

A practical intake template in LocalScribe might use:

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

Screening and symptom picture: Summarize notable screening results, symptom severity, and areas that need further assessment.

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

Current functioning: Describe functioning across work, school, relationships, and daily life.

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

Initial formulation and plan: Summarize the preliminary clinical picture and recommended next steps.

Treatment plans

Treatment planning is where mirroring Valant more closely often matters most. Valant describes a linked treatment-planning workflow with treatment plans, goals, measurable outcomes, session notes, customizable review cycles, reminders, and progress updates that can flow from clinical notes. That makes treatment plans a strong LocalScribe custom-template category, especially if your practice already works from a clear internal structure.

A practical treatment-plan template in LocalScribe might use:

Diagnosis or problem area: State the diagnosis, presenting problem, or treatment target being addressed.

Goals: Write broad treatment goals in clear clinical language.

Measurable outcomes or objectives: List specific, observable, or measurable markers that show progress toward the goal.

Interventions: Describe the clinician interventions, treatment approach, or services planned.

Frequency and review cycle: Document expected session frequency, review timing, and how progress will be revisited.

What to put into LocalScribe

Use the same source material you would normally rely on while writing manually. That can include typed shorthand, pasted text, dictation, ambient or session recording, and attachments such as intake paperwork, screeners, questionnaires, prior documents, and any clinician observations not captured elsewhere. LocalScribe is built to turn that source material into a structured draft, and its custom-template and test-reference tools become more useful as documentation gets more specialized.

A quick note for more specialized workflows

Valant also emphasizes screening tools and outcome measures across intake and ongoing care. For practices with more assessment-heavy or measurement-based workflows, custom terminology and test-reference tools can help keep the draft closer to the language and structure the chart expects. The order still matters, though. First match the Valant template shape. Then layer in specialty language as needed.

Bottom line

For Valant, built-in LocalScribe templates may work well for standard SOAP, DAP, or BIRP-style notes. Intake and treatment-planning workflows, along with any custom Valant note structure, are often better handled with a LocalScribe custom template that mirrors the way your practice already documents in Valant.