Questions and answers

Your clinic's appointments in ClinoVoice, imported from the clinic list or added by hand; the ClinoVoice recorder for consultations; and the patient leaflets, printed for the waiting room and the clinic desk. Read the consultation guide once before your first recorded clinic: most of what makes a good draft is said in the room.

The recorder, for a consultation: it is made to hear everyone in the room. A phone or laptop microphone is fine for dictation and a poor choice for a consultation, because the voice further from it fades and the transcript suffers. The first time you choose the device's own microphone, the app warns you and asks you to confirm. If it is all you have, put it on the desk between you and keep the screen on.

ClinoVoice runs in the web browser, at app.clinovoice.com. Connecting the recorder needs a browser that can reach a USB device; if yours cannot, the recording screen says so and names the browsers that can. We do not keep a list of versions here, because the app's own message is the one kept up to date.

Yes. Ask before every recorded consultation, follow-ups included, and record the answer with the button on the console. The answer is kept with that appointment, with the time and the version of the wording the patient was shown, so an earlier yes never stands in for today's.

You need not recite the wording on the screen, but what you say out loud must cover three things: that the consultation is being recorded; that it is to help write the letter, which you read and approve before it goes anywhere; and that they can say no, or ask you to stop, with no change to their care. Use the word "record". Phrases that work are in the guide.

Press Patient declines. Nothing is recorded, and the answer is kept with the appointment. See the patient as you always would, then dictate the letter afterwards or write it the usual way. Never persuade: a reluctant yes is worth less than a clean no.

Yes. Stop the recording as soon as they ask. On the sheet that follows Stop, Discard deletes the audio and nothing is sent for transcription. Discard is there until processing starts, when you press Done or shortly after Stop; after that, see "Can I delete a recording?" below.

On the patient information page, written for them, and in the leaflet, in A5 and in A4 large print, for the waiting room and the clinic desk. The leaflets are also on the guides page.

Because it was not said aloud. ClinoVoice writes only from what it hears, and it never fills a gap with a normal finding. Narrate the examination as you do it, with side and site, or write what you found in the note box after you press Stop. How it sounds in the room.

Only the risks you actually discuss are written in; ClinoVoice never adds a standard list. "The usual risks" or "the risks are on the leaflet" gives it nothing to write. Name each risk you covered, out loud, and it appears in the letter.

It is expected. Place names, colleagues' names and unusual drug names are the words speech recognition most often gets wrong. When ClinoVoice is not sure of a word, it says so in the review list, with how it read it. The fix is reading the review list before you approve, not keeping a list of words.

It holds everything ClinoVoice is not sure of: a word that may have been misheard, a passage that could be taken two ways, and anything expected for this kind of appointment that was not said. Each item is a question for you, not a fact in the letter. Read it first, then the letter. Approving removes any review notes left in. More in the guide.

A changed note is new information. ClinoVoice extracts the facts again from the transcript and your note, then drafts the letter again, so the wording can change beyond the point you added. It is a redraft of the same letter, not a new one: see Your allowance.

Yes. A dictated letter or note is written as you spoke it: your sentences, in your order, in your words, with punctuation and your spoken commands applied and nothing added or summarised. A recorded consultation is different: its letter is drafted from the facts drawn from the conversation. How to dictate.

Each letter or note ClinoVoice drafts for an appointment: a clinic letter, each referral letter, a dictated letter, a clinical note or a procedure note. Drafting the same one again, or in another voice or length, is a redraft, not another letter. The clinical summary and the standard did-not-attend letters are not counted; meeting minutes are counted on their own.

When its first draft is ready, not when you approve it. A draft that is never approved, or is deleted, is still counted: the drafting has been done. The month is the calendar month where your organisation is.

As a redraft, not as another letter. A changed note, Regenerate, another voice or length, or a stage run again after it succeeded each makes a redraft. Redrafts are shown on the gauge on their own and do not use up your letters. Each is processed again, though, and counts towards your organisation's spending limit for the month, so redraft when the draft needs it.

No. Only a finished draft counts. A recording that fails to transcribe, or a stage that fails and is tried again, uses none of your letters; the letter is counted once, when its first draft is ready.

A secretary never records. One with the operator role can start or retry processing a recording a clinician made, which drafts the letter that recording would have made anyway. Only a clinician with a seat can redraft, unless your organisation has turned on "Operators may regenerate" in Settings.

The gauge shows how many are left, and from near the end it appears in the top bar too. Past the allowance there is a small margin; after that, drafting pauses until the month turns or ClinoVoice adds more. Recordings made meanwhile are kept and transcribed, and their letters are drafted by themselves when drafting resumes. The console tells you before you record.

No. The gauge shows the minutes of audio transcribed this month, for your information. Only letters count against the allowance.

A secretary sees the clinic list, the patients and the approved letters, and sends and exports them. With the editor role they can also read drafts and transcripts and tidy a letter's text before you approve it; with the operator role, start or retry processing. A secretary never records, never hears the audio and never approves a letter.

Yes. One account can belong to more than one organisation, with its own role in each. One organisation is active at a time; its name in the top bar switches between them.

An owner invites secretaries, up to the organisation's places for them, from Settings, Members. Clinicians and owners are added by ClinoVoice: ask us. Each invitation is emailed, and whether it was delivered is shown under it.

Only your organisation's verified recipients: the addresses in Settings, Letter recipients, each confirmed by a code or, for a secretary, by their invitation. A letter is sent only after a clinician has approved it; approved letters go in the clinic's batch, and the secretary, or you, sends them to a recipient chosen from that list.

Add it in Settings, Letter recipients. ClinoVoice emails a code to that address; once the code is entered back, the address is verified and can receive letters. If the code's email bounces, the page says so: check the address and send a new code. A secretary's own address needs no code: it is added, verified, when they accept their invitation, and becomes the default if there is none yet. When anyone is removed from your organisation, their address is taken off the list too.

The recipient's mail server would not accept the letter, usually because the address has stopped working. A banner on the appointment and on the clinic's sent letters says which letter bounced, with Send again to the same or another verified recipient. The letter stays marked as sent.

Open the clinic's sent letters. Each sending shows its steps: queued, handed to the mail service, accepted, and delivered to the recipient's mail server. Delivered means their server has it, not that it has been read. A bounce shows there too, with Send again.

Recordings and the documents drafted from them are stored in London and processed in the European Union. Which provider does each part, and where, is in the sub-processor table of our data processing agreement. In the app, How recordings are handled, in the account menu, names the services your organisation uses.

For the period agreed between your organisation and ClinoVoice; then it is deleted. How recordings are handled, in the app's account menu, shows your organisation's setting. The recorder keeps its own copy on its card for a time after the recording is saved, set separately. The data processing agreement says what happens when an account ends.

Before processing starts, Discard on the sheet after Stop deletes it and nothing is sent. Afterwards, a clinician with a seat can delete it from the appointment's Recordings list: the audio is deleted, and so are its transcript and the facts drawn from it; a drafted letter is kept. Ask us if anything else needs removing.

ClinoVoice trains no model on your recordings or letters. What improves the drafting is how clinicians change drafts and the feedback they send: we look at both to improve the instructions the drafting follows. Recordings are processed only on your organisation's instructions, by the providers in the data processing agreement.