Creating an AI doctor's letter: what a draft from the conversation can do, and what it does not replace
An AI draft can take what was said during the consultation and order it into the sections of a clinical note, providing the basis for a doctor's letter. It replaces neither the clinical judgement nor the decision of what goes to the referring or receiving practice. The letter is written from the reviewed draft, not from the raw text.
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What "doctor's letter with AI" means today
Behind this search query stand three different kinds of tools. General AI chat services, into which text is pasted, write fluently but cannot be used for patient data without a contract and a legal basis. Functions built into practice software generate letters from what is already in the record. And tools that record the consultation deliver a draft from the conversation itself, that is, from what is not yet written down anywhere.
This guide covers the third case, because it shifts the work that costs the most time: reconstructing the conversation from memory after the appointment.
What the draft from the conversation contains
The draft follows the sections of an internal-medicine clinical note: history, findings, assessment and plan. Each section contains what was said about it in the conversation, usually as a statement from the doctor to the patient. What was not said is not in the draft: findings read silently, values from a laboratory system, earlier letters.
The assessment section is therefore not a judgement by the software. It gathers how the treating person made sense of what was heard, during the conversation. If that assessment is missing from the conversation, the section stays correspondingly thin, and that is correct.
From draft to letter: the review step
A doctor's letter has a recipient, a reason and a question it answers. The draft has none of that; it is material. The path from one to the other is a review step, not a click.
- Check names, dates, values and dosages against the record; spoken content is occasionally misheard.
- Add what was not said but is essential for the recipient.
- Remove what was said but does not belong in this particular letter.
- Write the assessment in your own words; the draft quotes, it does not judge.
- Add the finished letter to the record, as § 630f paragraph 2 BGB requires.
What a draft cannot do
It makes no diagnosis, suggests no codes, and evaluates no finding. It guarantees no completeness, because it only knows what was said. And it does not know who will read the letter: a letter to a primary care practice and one to a hospital differ in selection and tone, and that selection remains clinical work.
Anyone who knows these limits uses the draft correctly: as a record of what was discussed, from which the letter is produced with less reconstruction.
Data protection for doctor's letters with AI
Anyone who pastes conversation content into a general chat service transmits health data to a provider, usually without a data processing agreement and without any commitment on where it is processed. That is generally not a permitted disclosure within the meaning of § 203 StGB (German Criminal Code) and not lawful processing under Art. 9 GDPR.
Tools with a defined data path answer the three questions of where audio, text and draft are processed. The "Cloud or local" guide takes these questions apart; the answers belong in the practice's records before the first letter is produced.
Frequently asked questions
Can an AI write a doctor's letter completely on its own?
It can deliver a draft from the conversation. The letter itself needs a recipient, a selection, clinical judgement and a check of every value against the record. That remains clinical work, and so does the responsibility for it.
May I paste conversation content into a general AI chat service?
Not without a data processing agreement, a legal basis and a check of where the data is processed. Conversation content is health data and subject to confidentiality duties.
Does KiPT Voice create doctor's letters?
KiPT Voice creates a draft of the clinical note from the recorded conversation. The doctor writes the doctor's letter from that; the reviewed text can be copied into the practice software or a letter template.
What if the conversation was held in English?
The supported workflow produces a German draft from a conversation held in English. Because it is translated, it is not verbatim; the guide on English-language conversations describes what to check.