Sort what arrives
Read referrals, booking requests and forms, match each one to the right clinician's queue using routing rules your practice sets, and list the details still missing.
What AI could run / healthcare practices
AI sorts the paperwork. Your team and clinicians decide.
Referrals, booking requests and forms can be sorted, checked for missing details and turned into draft reminders by a connected AI agent inside the systems your practice already uses. The practice manager approves what goes out. Clinical decisions stay with clinicians, which is where the regulators draw the line.
Discuss your businessPotential implementation areas
Define the work.
Keep the decision.
Draft what repeats
Prepare appointment reminders and recall messages from your own templates, ready for the practice manager to review.
Keep the record
Log what was drafted, who approved it and when, in the system your practice already keeps records in.
Example / not a live deployment
AI prepares.
A person decides.
Illustrative example
Patient told and consent recorded → Agent sorts and drafts → Practice manager reviews → Practice manager approves what is sent → Clinician handles clinical matters → Record kept
Nothing goes out until a person has approved it. Diagnosis, clinical advice and decisions about who is seen first stay with clinicians.
What the rules say
What Ahpra, the TGA and others say
Whatever technology is used, the practitioner stays responsible for safe, quality care and must apply human judgment to any AI output.
Ahpra, AI in healthcare guidance, AccountabilityPractitioners should involve patients in the decision to use AI tools that need their personal data, obtain informed consent, and ideally note the response in the health record.
Ahpra, AI in healthcare guidance, Informed consentA digital scribe is likely to be a medical device if it suggests diagnoses or treatments, prioritises or monitors patients, or generates clinical conclusions.
TGA, Digital scribes, When digital scribes are medical devices (updated 16 October 2026)The TGA lists administrative functions as less likely to be medical devices, including organising information, drafting referral letters and checking for missing administrative information, as long as they do not suggest clinical conclusions.
TGA, Digital scribes, When digital scribes are not medical devicesThe TGA looks at how a product is labelled, advertised and presented. Medical claims in marketing can make a product a device, and a general disclaimer does not undo them.
TGA, Digital scribes, For industry: Intended purposeSoftware the manufacturer intends for administering health processes, such as appointments, schedules and workflow, and not for diagnosis or treatment decisions, can be excluded from device regulation. The guidance says this does not apply to software intended to manage individual patient use cases.
TGA, Excluded software, exclusion 14G (Version 1.0, July 2024)Health information is sensitive information under the Privacy Act, and the small business exemption does not cover a business that provides a health service and holds health information.
Privacy Act 1988, s 6(1), s 6FA, s 6D(4)(b)The OAIC recommends, as best practice, not entering personal information, and particularly sensitive information, into publicly available generative AI tools.
OAIC, Guidance on privacy and the use of commercially available AI productsUnder the RACGP's 6th edition standards, a practice that uses AI facilitates consent processes, sets up governance and documents how clinicians oversee AI output. The standards do not require a practice to use AI, and the practice stays responsible for tools a third party supplies.
RACGP, Standards for general practices 6th edition, F11 and What practices need to know
This page summarises guidance and law. It is not legal, privacy or regulatory advice. Read the sources and take your own advice, especially on consent and on whether any tool counts as a medical device.
Questions medical, allied health and dental practices ask
Clarity before commitment.
Is this an AI scribe?
No. The agent works on administration: referrals, forms, bookings and reminders. It does not record consultations or write clinical notes.
Could the agent decide which patients are seen first?
No. Sorting follows the rules your practice sets, such as which clinician or service a referral is for. The TGA treats prioritising or monitoring patients as a sign that software may be a medical device, so we keep it out of scope.
Do patients need to consent?
Ahpra says practitioners should obtain informed consent when an AI tool needs a patient's personal data, and ideally note the response in the record. The RACGP expects practices that use AI to have a consent process. How that applies to an administration tool is a question for your practice's adviser.
Does the Privacy Act apply to a small practice?
Usually yes. The small business exemption does not cover a business that provides a health service and holds health information (section 6D(4)(b)), so turnover alone does not take a practice outside the Act.
Related industries
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