Who can listen to a recording?
Paid listen-back is available to the clinician while audio is retained for review. Free has no playback after its draft arrives.
On paid plans, only you, while the draft is open — that’s what listen-back is for. Free deletes audio when its first draft arrives and has no listen-back. Every access is written to the audit log, and once you confirm the note there is nothing left to listen to.
Paid review while the draft is open
Listen-back exists to settle a flag. Where Small Mercy wasn’t sure it heard something, you can play that moment back and decide for yourself rather than accepting a confident-looking sentence. On paid plans, the audio is kept AES-256-encrypted while you review the draft, subject to the retention policy.
Every access is logged
Every access to a record is written to an append-only audit log, enforced at the database level — ordinary access can add entries, never edit them; lawful purge follows export and the required retention period. Access to clinical data at Small Mercy is limited, logged and reviewed; nothing is looked at silently. On the UK Sovereign region, remote access for support and platform administration may occur from Australia — exceptional rather than routine, scoped to the task, authenticated, and written to the same append-only log; the UK privacy notice sets out the safeguard. Small Mercy doesn’t yet hold formal certifications — they’re on the roadmap, and we’d rather say that plainly than imply otherwise.
After you confirm
On paid plans, by default the copy Small Mercy holds is deleted the moment you confirm the note; on a fixed-window practice policy it goes at that deadline, and an automatic sweep enforces the 7-day ceiling in every mode. After that point the question stops being about permissions — there is no recording to play.
The patient doesn’t receive the audio either. What they can take away is the QR deletion receipt, which is login-free, carries no patient details, and flips to “Verified” when Small Mercy’s copy has actually been deleted. It does not yet speak for third-party processors — those used on the Global profile, or the transcription and drafting providers in the UK or EU on UK Sovereign — what happens to consult audio draws that line.
If you ever need us to investigate something involving a consultation, keep patient details out of your support message — that’s covered in how to get help.
Related: what the audit log records, and the full picture on privacy by design.
Still stuck?
Email support@smallmercy.app — or see the contact page. Service status lives at status.smallmercy.app.