Discharge & communications
Send owners a clear summary of what happened and what comes next.
The SOAP note is the clinical record for your team. The discharge summary is the owner-facing document, in plain language, focused on instructions and next steps. The two are kept separate so you can include clinical detail in the SOAP without overwhelming the owner.
How discharge works
When a vet signs and finalizes a visit, Chartling generates a discharge summary draft from the signed SOAP content on both the Intelligence and Practice plans. The draft is held for review before delivery. It is never sent automatically without staff confirmation.
Content and delivery are gated separately, though, and that split matters: generating the draft needs the AI-discharge capability (Intelligence and Practice), while automatically emailing or texting it to the owner needs the client-communications capability (Operations and Practice). Practice is the only tier that holds both, so it's the only tier where a discharge is drafted and auto-sent. On Intelligence, the discharge still gets written and is visible in-app (and in the owner portal, if the patient-portal surface is enabled). It just isn't pushed out by an automatic email/SMS, since Intelligence doesn't carry the client-communications capability. On Intelligence you'd hand it over at checkout, print it, or send it manually through your own channel.
Reviewing and sending a discharge
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Finalize the visit
The vet signs the SOAP note. The visit moves to Signed status and, on Intelligence and Practice, a discharge draft is generated in the background.
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Find it on the note
The discharge instructions panel lives right on the signed visit's note page. There's no separate discharge screen to navigate to. It shows the summary, medications sent home, home-care instructions, follow-up, and warning signs.
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Edit if needed
Click Edit to rewrite any section before it reaches the owner. On plans without AI discharge, or if you'd rather not use the AI draft at all, Write it yourself is always available. It's never feature-gated, so every tier can produce a discharge by hand. Regenerate re-runs the AI draft and is available wherever ai.discharge is on your plan.
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Send
On the Practice plan, once the draft exists Chartling sends the owner a discharge email automatically. It is a single send, keyed to the note, so it never double-sends even if you re-open and re-finalize. If the client also has a portal account, the same content appears there. On Intelligence, there's no automatic owner email or SMS. Hand the discharge over at checkout, print it, or send it yourself.
The AI-drafted discharge itself is available to Intelligence and Practice orgs, and the portal copy shows up for any clinic with the patient portal enabled. But the automatic email/SMS send described above is a separate, gated step available on Operations and Practice only. An Intelligence-only clinic gets a discharge the owner can see in the portal, but Chartling won't automatically email or text them about it. Send it manually or make sure your portal-invite workflow lets clients know to check.
What owners see
The discharge summary delivered to owners includes:
- Visit summary: what was found, in plain language
- Medications: each drug, dose, and frequency in owner-friendly terms
- Home care instructions: wound care, activity restrictions, dietary changes
- Follow-up: recommended recheck date or "call if" conditions
- Lab results summary: only if the vet chose to include it
Owners do not see the raw SOAP note, clinical shorthand, or any internal staff notes.
Discharge and cosign
If a SOAP note requires a cosign (e.g. a supervised vet), the discharge is held until the cosign is complete. The owner won't receive the discharge until the supervising vet has countersigned the note. This prevents premature communication before the clinical record is confirmed.
FAQ
No. Once sent, the discharge is locked to preserve a consistent record of what the owner was told. If you need to correct something, send a follow-up message through the Messaging feature, or call the owner. If the error is clinical, it should be noted as an addendum to the SOAP note as well.
From the discharge panel on the note, click PDF to download a formatted copy to hand to the owner at checkout. This works regardless of tier or whether the client has portal/email on file.
No. On Practice, the discharge email is sent exactly once per note, keyed to that note, even if the visit gets re-finalized. If the client also has a portal account, the same content shows up there too; that's not a second send.
Yes, and it's not something you need to turn off first. Write it yourself sits right next to Generate/Regenerate on every signed note, on every plan, AI or not. Use whichever fits the visit.