What happens when I confirm a note?

Confirming is the moment the draft becomes a record. Nothing is finalised or exported until you confirm. On Free, the audio has already been deleted when the first draft arrived. Paid plans delete audio on confirmation by default, subject to the practice’s retention policy and a hard seven-day ceiling.

What already exists while you review

Worth being precise, because patients ask. On paid plans, while audio is retained for review, the encrypted audio, transcript and generated draft exist — that is exactly what lets you listen back to a flag and pick the session up again after an interruption. Confirming is not the moment things start being stored; it is the moment the draft stops being a draft.

What confirmation controls is finalisation and export: until you confirm, the generated clinical output remains a draft and is not exported to your clinical record. Transcription and drafting still follow your organisation’s consented processing route.

Before you confirm

The review queue is consequence-ranked: the riskiest flags come first, so your attention lands where it matters most. The open-flag count sits beside the Confirm button, so you always know how much is outstanding.

Work the queue before you confirm. On paid plans, listen back to what Small Mercy wasn’t sure it heard, re-read what it couldn’t place, and fill in or accept anything marked [not stated]. The flags are advisory, but a flag you cleared without reading is one you signed.

What confirming does

• The note becomes a record and can be exported. Confirmed notes carry a provenance seal.
• Any retained audio Small Mercy holds is deleted by default. That is what allows the patient’s QR deletion receipt to flip to “Verified”.
• Paid listen-back ends, because there is no longer a recording to play.

Letters and tasks draft themselves from the consult, and each of those is reviewed and confirmed the same way — nothing self-saves anywhere in Small Mercy.

MBS billing hints work differently, and it’s worth knowing which: a hint is read-only. Small Mercy never saves, exports or submits it, so there is no confirm step to look for — you read it and enter the item in your own billing system.

Who is responsible for the note

You are. Every model-generated draft requires explicit human review and confirmation before it is saved or exported; nothing is committed on the model’s own. Small Mercy is a documentation aid, not a diagnostic device, and it must never invent, suggest or infer a diagnosis, dose, management plan or other clinical fact absent from the source; required gaps stay [not stated]. You are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the final note, exactly as you are today.

If your paid plan retains audio for review, do your listening back first.