Every ambient scribe recording starts with a spoken request, not a signature buried in the intake pack. Patients need to hear, in the room, that the consult is about to be recorded, what happens to the recording, and that they can say no without it affecting their care. Getting this moment right matters more than the underlying technology, because it is what makes the record defensible and the relationship honest.
Raise it before the consult starts, not partway through
The best moment to ask is the opening seconds of the encounter, after the clinician has greeted the patient and before any clinically relevant conversation begins. Reception can flag on booking that recording is in use at the practice, but that notice is not consent on its own: consent is sought by the clinician, in the room, at the start of the specific consult being recorded, every time, regardless of what a booking confirmation said.
Waiting until partway through a consult to mention recording puts the patient in an awkward position. They have already said things they did not know were being captured, and stopping to ask retrospectively can read as an afterthought rather than a genuine choice. Front loading the request keeps the sequence clean: greet, ask, record, treat. It also gives the patient a real decision point before anything sensitive has been said, which is the whole point of asking first.
What to say: a plain language script
There is no fixed legal wording required, but the request needs to cover the same ground every time so patients get a consistent, complete picture. A short, natural version works better than a formal recitation, and most clinicians settle into their own phrasing within a few uses.
- Name what is happening: "I use a recording tool called Aurii to help write up today's notes."
- Say what it does: it listens during the consult and drafts the clinical note, referral letter or discharge summary afterwards.
- Say who reviews it: "I read and edit everything before it goes into your file, nothing is filed automatically."
- Give a genuine choice: "You're welcome to say no, it won't change the care you get today, I'll just type notes as we go instead."
- Confirm the yes: wait for a clear verbal response before starting, rather than treating silence as agreement.
What the consent actually needs to cover
Under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles, health information is treated as sensitive information, which generally requires the patient's consent to its collection. Recording a consult is a collection event in its own right, separate from the fact that a clinical note gets written either way, so the consent needs to be specific to the recording rather than folded into a general practice privacy notice signed months earlier at registration.
In practice that means the patient should understand three things: that audio is captured during the consult, that it is used to draft documentation and is not itself the clinical record, and that a named clinician reviews and finalises whatever the tool produces before it becomes part of their file. Aurii is a documentation aid, not a medical device, and it does not diagnose or recommend treatment, so the consent conversation should describe it as a note taking assistant rather than anything more clinical than that.
Documenting the consent itself
Verbal consent is standard and defensible, provided it is recorded somewhere. The simplest method is to say the consent out loud as part of the encounter: a line such as "I've got your okay to record today's consult", spoken at the start, lands inside the transcript itself and becomes a timestamped part of the record. Practices that already log verbal consent for phone triage or telehealth are applying the same discipline here, just against a new kind of encounter.
Some practices prefer a short discrete note in the practice management system, Best Practice, MedicalDirector, Genie and similar all support a free text entry against the encounter, recording that consent was sought and given, by whom, and the date. Either approach satisfies the same underlying requirement: a reviewer looking back at the file later should be able to see that consent happened, not just assume it did. For the practice wide policy this sits inside, see Compliance and privacy.
When a patient hesitates or declines
A decline is a normal outcome and should be handled without friction. The clinician reverts to typing or handwriting notes as they would have before adopting a scribe, and the encounter proceeds exactly as it would have otherwise. Nothing about declining should be visible to the patient as a lesser standard of care, because it isn't one, and it should never be framed to the patient as one either.
- Document the decline neutrally, the same way consent is documented, so the file reflects what was asked and answered.
- Offer to record only part of the consult if the hesitation is about a specific sensitive topic, pausing before that section and resuming after.
- Answer the practical worry directly: recordings are used to draft notes for this practice's own clinical record, not shared externally, and audio is handled under the practice's existing data policies.
- Revisit at the next visit rather than treating one decline as permanent, patients sometimes decline once and are comfortable later once they understand the process better.
Telehealth, chaperones and other variations
The same request works on a video or phone consult, spoken at the start of the call before clinical content begins, there is nothing about a remote setting that changes the underlying requirement. Where a chaperone or support person is present in the room, the consent conversation should name them too, since the recording captures their voice as well as the patient's, and their presence should be acknowledged out loud rather than assumed to be understood.
Where a parent, guardian or person with medical power of attorney is providing consent on behalf of the patient, the same script applies to them, with an age appropriate explanation offered to the patient directly where that is practical. Group consults, common in some family practice and allied health settings, need each adult participant to hear the request, not just the primary patient, so nobody in the room is recorded without knowing it.
Where Aurii fits
This section is about our product. Everything above is not.
Aurii does not automate the consent conversation and should not be relied on to replace the clinician asking directly, the request is a human moment between clinician and patient, and the tool starts listening only after that moment has happened. What Aurii does add is a visible recording indicator so both parties can see when capture is active, a pause control for the moments a clinician wants to step outside the recording, and a timestamped transcript that preserves the consent statement itself as part of the record.
Everything the tool drafts, the progress note, a referrer letter, a discharge summary, is reviewed and signed by the named clinician before it becomes part of the patient's file: the scribe writes, the doctor decides. Data is captured, transcribed and stored in Australia, with Sydney as the primary location and Melbourne as backup, encrypted per record, under a seven year tamper evident audit trail, which gives clinicians a straightforward, honest answer when a patient asks where their words actually go. For the underlying legal basis and what consent needs to hold up under scrutiny, see Consent for AI scribes, and for the version written directly for patients, see For patients.
Common questions
A clear verbal yes, documented at the time, is standard practice and holds up as valid consent. Some practices choose to add a written form for their own records, but it is a local policy choice, not a requirement, provided the verbal exchange is captured somewhere against the encounter.
Yes, in substance. A practice can set an expectation with a patient that recording is its normal way of working, but the clinician should still say so at the start of each recorded consult, since circumstances, and what the patient is comfortable with, can change visit to visit.
They should be named and made aware that the recording covers their voice too, not only the patient's. The same plain language request extends to them, it simply needs to be said out loud so nobody in the room is recorded without knowing it.
Yes. The clinician can pause recording before a sensitive topic and resume afterward, treating it as a partial consent rather than an all or nothing choice. Handling this smoothly is part of what makes the initial request feel genuine rather than procedural.
Either inside the transcript itself, if the clinician states the consent out loud at the start, or as a short discrete note in the practice management system against that encounter. Both give a reviewer a clear, timestamped trail showing consent was sought and given.
This article is general information for clinicians and practice managers, not clinical, legal or financial advice. More guides sit on the resources hub. If your practice needs a question answered before it adopts AI documentation, tell us and we will write it: hello@aurii.com.au.