No busy health professional wants to spend more time charting.

They want to spend more time working with clients on the important stuff, doing the marketing that keeps their practice growing, or spending their evenings with their families (what a novel thought).

And with after-hours charting strongly associated with healthcare provider burnout, tightening up your charting game can improve the longevity of your practice.

The good news: All Practice Better plans include note templates to reduce your charting time to minutes, not hours. If set up right, this feature can save you precious hours during the week so you can work on what matters most to you.

Read on to learn more on how to best use note templates to free up your time from charting.

Mental health professionals: looking for BIRP, DAP, and Mental Health SOAP note templates? Head to the note template library to upload, customize, save time with the latest batch of mental health note templates.

Create efficient systems with note templates

You likely want to spend less time charting and more time with clients and patients, so SOAP note templates, for example, can benefit you in various ways:

1. Time Efficiency: Templates streamline the note-taking process, saving professionals valuable time. They don't have to start from scratch with each patient or client.
2. Consistency: Templates ensure that all essential information is captured consistently in every note. This consistency is crucial for maintaining accurate records and adhering to industry standards.
3. Accuracy: Using templates can reduce the risk of errors and omissions in notes, which is critical in healthcare and wellness to provide safe and effective care.
4. Structured Information: Note templates often include predefined sections for different aspects of a patient's or client's history, making organizing and accessing information easier.
5. Improved Communication: Clear and organized notes are easier to share with other healthcare professionals or for referrals, promoting effective communication and collaboration.
6. Better Patient/Client Experience: Using templates frees more time for professionals to focus on patient or client care rather than paperwork, potentially leading to a better overall experience for those they serve.

How to use note templates to streamline charting

Imagine having no charts to finish at the end of the day. With some smart templates and a bit of set-up time investment, this dream could be within reach. Learn how.

If you want a detailed video tutorial on using note templates in your practice, check out this three-part video series that will teach you how to add, edit, use, and share your notes for fast and easy charting.

Here's the first video in the tutorial:

https://youtu.be/RiwmPhfd6Bw

Working with note templates in Practice Better

Practice Better provides you with pre-built templates that you can use as is, customize to suit your needs, or even create and share your own custom note templates.

Sharing sections of your note with your clients

Smart, time-efficient charting is all about reducing the number of clicks and keystrokes. If you can set up your note template to share the Plan with your client, that savs you from copying and pasting into a different document.

Adding multiple text blocks allows you to keep sections of your notes private while sharing only specific sections with clients.

For example, if you’re using a SOAP note template, you may want to keep the subjective, objective, and assessment sections private and share only the plan section with your client so they can reference it in the future. You can easily set this as a default in your SOAP note template so the plan section is always shared when you create a note from that template.

Formatting and automating your note templates in Practice Better

These text sections have rich formatting options, including images, videos, links, tables, lists, and even text snippets to save you from repeatedly re-treating the same information.

Information in a client record can be automatically pulled into your notes using placeholders in your note templates. This reduces redundant charting and helps maintain the accuracy of the client data.

Once you’ve created your template, creating notes for client sessions will be a breeze, helping you focus on your clients, not on your notes.

Learn more about creating and using Practice Better Note Templates to make note-taking and organizing quick and easy.

Want note templates specifically designed for mental health professionals? Head to the note template library to upload, customize, save time with the latest batch of mental health note templates.

[Editor's note: this post was originally published on October 23, 2023. It has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.]