How do you write referral and GP report letters from an allied health consult with an AI scribe?
The short answer: record the consult as usual, then draft the letter from a letter template instead of a note template. The scribe fills in the patient's name, your name, the practice name and the date from the record. It writes the clinical paragraphs from what was said and typed in the session. You check it, finalise it and send it the way you already send letters. For a letter that covers a whole course of care, draft it from several visits at once.
Below is what that looks like in practice, with the Australian Medicare reporting rules as the worked case. We build Hanah for allied health, so read this with that in mind. The steps apply to any scribe you trial.
What does a report to the referring GP need to contain?
For patients referred under a GP chronic condition management plan, Services Australia states that the allied health professional must provide a written report to the referring GP after the first and last service, and can report more often if clinically necessary (page updated 30 June 2026). The report should cover three things:
- the investigations, tests and assessments carried out
- the treatment provided
- recommendations for future management of the patient's condition.
Other referral pathways have their own rules, so check the scheme you're working under. As a structure, though, those three headings make a good default for almost any letter back to a referrer.
How does an AI scribe turn a consult into a letter?
In Hanah, the referral letter template that comes with a clinician's starting library is laid out like a real letter:
- Today's date, then a salutation to the referring practitioner.
- A "Re:" line with the patient's name.
- A line thanking the referrer and naming the reason for referral.
- A paragraph on the presentation and relevant history.
- A paragraph on examination findings and your clinical impression.
- The management you've started.
- Any requests of the referrer, and the follow-up plan.
- Your sign-off with your name and the practice name.
Two kinds of content go into it, and the difference matters.
Filled from the record. The date, the patient's name, your name and the practice name are filled in before the AI starts writing. They're never picked out of the audio, so a misheard surname can't end up in the "Re:" line.
Written from the session. The clinical paragraphs come from the transcript, any notes you typed during the visit and any photos you attached. The template tells the AI to leave out anything that wasn't discussed rather than fill the gap. If you didn't examine the knee, the letter shouldn't say you did.
The letter template is set to full prose even if your notes are in Shorthand, because a GP reads a letter, not a note.
A tip for Medicare reports: the starting template ends with requests and follow-up, not "recommendations for future management". If you write a lot of GP chronic condition management plan reports, add that line to your copy of the template so every report covers all three headings Services Australia lists.
An illustrative example
This example is fictional. We wrote it to show the shape of a first-service report. It isn't a real patient and it isn't a captured Hanah output.
A podiatrist sees Graham, 64, for the first time under his GP's chronic condition management plan for type 2 diabetes. During the consult they talk through tingling in both feet and a callus he has been paring himself. The podiatrist tests sensation with a monofilament, checks pulses and debrides the callus. At the end they agree on a six-week review. The draft letter reads:
Dear Dr Patel,
Re: Graham Oakes
Thank you for referring Graham, whom I reviewed today for foot care under his chronic condition management plan for type 2 diabetes.
Graham reports intermittent tingling in both feet over the past year, worse at night, and a callus under the left forefoot that he has been paring at home.
On assessment, monofilament sensation was reduced at three of ten sites on the left foot and one of ten on the right. Pedal pulses were palpable bilaterally. There was a callus under the left second metatarsal head with no ulceration. These findings are consistent with early peripheral neuropathy and increased foot risk.
Today I debrided the callus and gave advice on footwear and daily foot checks.
I will review Graham in six weeks and write again after his final service under this referral.
What the podiatrist checks before sending: that the GP's name is right, that the numbers match what they measured, and that the recommendations say what they meant. Here, they'd add a recommendation for future management, which the consult didn't cover in words.
What should you check before a letter goes out?
The clinician stays responsible for the letter. Ahpra's guidance on AI in healthcare says a practitioner using an AI scribe is responsible for checking the accuracy and relevance of what it produces. In Hanah, every document is a draft until a clinician reviews and finalises it, and nothing is sent automatically. Check these four things every time:
- The salutation. The referrer's name is drafted from the session. If nobody said it and you didn't type it, it will be missing or generic.
- Figures and sides. Left and right, ranges and scores are where a transcript error does the most damage.
- What was left out. A scribe that won't guess will leave gaps, like the missing recommendation in the example. That's the right behaviour, but it's your job to fill them.
- The register. It should read like one clinician writing to another.
No scribe is error-free, ours included. We publish how often ours gets things wrong and how we measure it.
How do you write a letter that covers several visits?
The report after the last service is the harder one, because it has to summarise weeks of care. Drafting it from the final visit alone misses most of that care.
In Hanah you can draft a letter from several visits at once. Pick the patient, choose a period (the last 30 days, three months, six months or all time), then tick the visits to draw on. If your PMS is connected, you can include its appointments too. Each visit reaches the AI labelled with its date and treating clinician, so the letter can say what changed and when. Inside your PMS, the browser extension's draft card has a "Date range…" option that does the same thing.
Can the letter go on our letterhead, or into our PMS's letter template?
Yes, in two ways.
- Your own Word or PDF template. Upload your letterhead or referral form once, and Hanah fills it from the consult. A field the session didn't cover is left blank, not guessed, and you can edit any field before you use the document.
- Zanda's letter composer. If your practice runs on Zanda, the extension adds a Hanah draft button to Zanda's letter, email and SMS composers. If you've already loaded one of your Zanda letter templates, Hanah completes that template. It keeps your fixed wording and sign-off, and leaves any placeholder the session can't fill as it is. It never fills in the recipient. That's the one field on the page you should always choose yourself.
With Cliniko, Halaxy and Nookal, the extension fills the note form. You draft letters in Hanah and send them through your usual route.
What about referring on to another discipline?
The starting template is written as a reply to the person who referred the patient to you. For an onward referral, such as a physio referring to a dietitian or a podiatrist to a vascular surgeon, you have two options. Add a second letter template for it, or give a one-off drafting instruction when you create the document. If the clinician you're referring to works in the same practice, they already see the same patient record, so the letter is a summary rather than the only copy of your findings.
FAQ
Does the scribe send the letter for me? No. It drafts the letter, and you review, finalise and send it. Hanah doesn't send a letter to anyone on its own.
Will the letter mention things we didn't discuss? The template tells the AI to leave out anything the session didn't cover, and a form field it can't fill stays blank. Any AI can still make mistakes, which is why every letter gets a clinician's review.
My notes are in shorthand. Will my letters be too? No. The referral letter template is set to full prose, whatever style you use for notes.
How often do I have to report to the GP under a chronic condition management plan? After the first and last service, and more often if clinically necessary.
Do I need a practice management system? No. Hanah works on its own, or inside Cliniko, Halaxy, Nookal and Zanda.
To see letters drafted from your own consults, see Hanah for allied health or book a demo below.