Important: SimplePractice will begin retaining de-identified and de-coupled Note Taker session transcripts on June 17, 2026. This guide provides an overview of what's changing and how you can manage your preferences.
Transcript retention allows SimplePractice to retain a de-identified and de-coupled version of a Note Taker session transcript to help us continue improving Note Taker and other AI-powered features, such as those included in Care Aide.
Transcript retention is optional. You can choose whether transcripts are retained by managing your retention preferences at the clinician, client, or session level.
Your default retention setting is determined specifically by when you enable Note Taker, for yourself or team members in a group practice.
If you used Note Taker before June 17, 2026, you'll be opted out of transcript retention by default. No action is required from you, and no transcripts will be retained unless you choose to opt in.
If you enable Note Taker on or after June 17, 2026, you'll be opted in to transcript retention by default and can opt out at any time.
In this guide, we’ll cover:
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Understanding transcript retention
- What is transcript retention?
- Why are transcripts retained by default for new Note Taker users?
- How can retaining transcripts improve Note Taker?
- Is SimplePractice training an AI model or building an AI therapist?
- How is training an AI model different from product improvement?
- What third parties or vendors process transcript data?
- Will you be compensating us for retaining this transcript data?
- Will this affect me if I don’t have Note Taker or Care Aide enabled in my account?
- Privacy, de-identification, and access
- Managing your retention preferences
- Client conversations and consent
- Additional resources
Note: The transcript retention process was developed in collaboration with licensed mental health professionals and informed by our AI Governance, Legal, and Compliance teams, as well as experts in law, ethics, technology, and clinical care. For more information, see our Addendum to SimplePractice Terms of Service for Add-On AI Products.
Understanding transcript retention
What is transcript retention?
Note: Transcript retention is a term we use at SimplePractice to describe when our customers allow SimplePractice to retain de-identified transcripts to help improve its features.
When you use Note Taker, your session audio is converted into a transcript that’s used to generate a draft progress note. The audio is deleted immediately after the transcript is generated.
The transcript remains available to you for up to 7 days, or until the note is signed and locked, whichever comes first. If your note isn't signed and locked within 7 days, the transcript and draft note are deleted and you’ll need to write the progress note manually.
Beginning June 17, 2026, if you’re opted into transcript retention, SimplePractice will securely retain a de-identified and de-coupled version of the session transcript after the 7-day review window ends or a note is signed and locked, rather than fully deleting it.
Transcript retention includes only the text transcript of the session. The audio is still deleted immediately after the transcript is generated.
Transcript retention does not include:
- Draft notes or other summary content generated from the transcript
- Finalized notes that have been signed and locked
- Pre-session summaries
- Assessments, forms, or other clinical documents
- Information from other parts of the client chart
- Psychotherapy notes
Retained transcripts are:
- De-identified using a multi-step process that's been validated with privacy experts to meet the Safe Harbor standard under HIPAA
- Encrypted and stored securely within SimplePractice's HIPAA-compliant environment
- De-coupled from the client, clinician, and practice
- Accessible only to a limited number of authorized team members for product improvement purposes
Why are transcripts retained by default for new Note Taker users?
Transcript retention is enabled by default for new Note Taker users as it supports ongoing improvements to the Note Taker experience. Clinicians who sign up for Note Taker on or after June 16, 2026 will receive notice of this default setting during setup, and can choose to opt out at the clinician, client, or session level at any time.
For clinicians using Note Taker prior to June 16, 2026, transcript retention is disabled by default. To avoid automatically changing the experience clinicians originally signed up for, no transcripts will be retained unless those clinicians choose to opt in.
How can retaining transcripts improve Note Taker?
De-identified transcripts are used to evaluate and improve Note Taker, including prompts, workflows, and settings that guide its output. A prompt is the set of instructions that tells the AI what to do. Improving these prompts using de-identified transcripts helps Note Taker better understand clinical conversations and create more accurate notes.
In practice, this helps Note Taker:
- Understand clinical nuance and context
- Improve note accuracy and clinical language
- Reduce biased or inaccurate interpretations
- Recognize therapeutic progress and client sentiment
For example, a word like “pain” might initially appear negative to Note Taker. In a clinical context, however, discussing pain can represent real progress in emotional connection and awareness. Retaining additional transcript data helps improve Note Taker’s ability to recognize these nuances and generate more accurate draft notes.
Starting June 17, 2026, you'll be able to update your retention preferences at any time, regardless of your default setting.
- Existing Note Taker users before June 17, 2026: You’ll be opted out of transcript retention by default.
- Customers who aren’t current Note Taker users on June 17, 2026: You’ll be opted in to transcript retention by default if you enable Note Taker in the future.
If you’re opted in to transcript retention, retained transcripts help us continue to improve the tools you use over time. Throughout this process, your privacy and your clients' privacy are protected by our de-identification, de-coupling, and access controls.
Important: SimplePractice will never sell transcript content. All retained transcripts will be used only to improve our AI features and will never be shared with third parties for their commercial purposes.
Is SimplePractice training an AI model or building an AI therapist?
No. SimplePractice is not training an AI model with retained transcript data, and we are not building an AI therapist. Mental health care is fundamentally human, and we firmly believe that clinicians remain at the center of client care.
There are two different ways AI systems can improve. The first is model training (which SimplePractice is not doing), where data is fed into the underlying AI model to change how the model itself works. SimplePractice does not do this. To emphasize: SimplePractice does not use retained transcripts to update, retrain, or modify the underlying AI model.
The second is to use de-identified transcripts to evaluate Note Taker's output and refine the instructions we give the AI. The AI model remains unchanged. This is what SimplePractice is doing. We adjust how we instruct the AI model to generate progress notes and other AI-generated content so that the results are more accurate, more clinically relevant, and require less editing from you.
How is training an AI model different from product improvement?
Training an AI model involves feeding data into the model to change how it operates. SimplePractice does not do this. Retained transcripts are not used to train or modify the underlying AI model.
Product improvement involves using de-identified transcripts to evaluate Note Taker's output and identify opportunities to improve the prompts used with the underlying model. Those insights help our team refine how we instruct the AI to generate notes. Retained transcripts help us identify areas where Note Taker could perform better, but they are not used to train or modify the underlying AI model. For more information, see How can retaining transcripts improve Note Taker?.
What third parties or vendors process transcript data?
We currently work with two technology providers to power Note Taker: Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Anthropic. Anthropic provides the underlying AI model, while AWS Bedrock provides the infrastructure that allows SimplePractice to process data securely and maintain control over how data is handled.
All technology partners are subject to strict privacy, security, and applicable business associate obligations. They do not receive customer or client information to use for their own purposes, including training their AI models or product development.
Will you be compensating us for retaining this transcript data?
No. At this time, SimplePractice does not offer compensation in exchange for participation in transcript retention. Participation is optional, and clinicians can choose whether transcript retention is right for their practice.
Retained transcripts will improve the product experience for all clinicians that use Note Taker. De-identified transcripts help us refine Note Taker so that draft notes become more accurate, more clinically relevant, and require less editing over time. This means less time spent on documentation and more time focused on your clients. The goal is not to extract value from your data, but to reduce the administrative burden you already experience by making the tools you rely on work better for you.
Will this affect me if I don’t have Note Taker or Care Aide enabled in my account?
No. If you don’t use Note Taker or Care Aide (which includes Note Taker) and don’t have either feature enabled in your account, this update doesn’t affect you.
If you enable Note Taker or Care Aide in the future, you’ll be opted into transcript retention by default and can opt out at any time.
Privacy, de-identification, and access
What is de-identification?
Our de-identification process follows HIPAA’s Safe Harbor method, ensuring all 18 identifiers of PHI are removed. This includes identifiers such as names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. For a full list of the 18 identifiers, see How SimplePractice protects your privacy through de-identification.
Here's an example of what de-identification looks like in practice:
- Original transcript: Jane Doe came in on March 12, 2026 reporting persistent anxiety that began after she moved to her new apartment at 123 Fake Street, Anytown, ZZ 00000. She mentioned that her psychiatrist, Dr. Smith, prescribed Prozac last year but wants to revisit the dosage. I asked her to follow up by phone at (555) 555-0100 or by email at not.a.real.email@example.test so we can coordinate care.
- De-identified transcript: [REDACTED_PERSON_1] came in on [REDACTED_DATE_TIME_1] reporting persistent anxiety that began after she moved to her new apartment at [REDACTED_LOCATION_1]. She mentioned that her psychiatrist, Dr. [REDACTED_PERSON_2], prescribed Prozac [REDACTED_DATE_TIME_2] but wants to revisit the dosage. I asked her to follow up by phone at [REDACTED_PHONE_NUMBER_1] or by email at [REDACTED_EMAIL_1] so we can coordinate care.
With names, locations, dates, and contact details removed and replaced by generic placeholders, the de-identified transcript retains the clinical meaning of the session while removing information that could be tied to a specific individual.
What is de-coupling?
De-coupling is the practice of separating a transcript from the specific client, clinician, or practice it originated from so it can’t be traced back to its source.
While de-identification removes identifiers from the content itself, de-coupling removes the relationship between that content and the clinician, client, practice, or appointment it came from.
Once a transcript is de-identified and de-coupled, it becomes part of a general pool of clinical language data with no link to any individual client, clinician, or practice.
Who will have access to retained transcripts?
If you do not opt out of transcript retention, your session transcripts will be:
- Fully de-identified
- De-coupled from the practice, clinician, and client
- Encrypted and stored securely within SimplePractice’s HIPAA compliant platform
Access to retained transcripts is limited and controlled:
- Only a small number of authorized team members may access retained transcript data after completing required training
- Access is strictly for the purpose of improving Note Taker and related AI tools, meaning authorized team members accessing the data must have a legitimate purpose to do so
- Authorized team members with access to data are trained on strict privacy and security policies
- We maintain audit logs of access to the data
Because all identifiers are removed before retention, retained transcripts can’t be re-identified or linked back to you or your clients. Retained transcripts are never sold, shared externally outside of our controlled environment, or used to generate outputs that include portions of past sessions. This process is designed to comply with HIPAA’s Safe Harbor de-identification requirements.
For more information on data security, see Staying HIPAA compliant with SimplePractice.
Can retained transcripts be subpoenaed?
No. Because retained transcripts are fully de-identified and de-coupled, SimplePractice has no way to identify, locate, or produce a transcript associated with a specific individual. If a subpoena were issued seeking session content, the de-identification and de-coupling process means there would be no responsive records to produce. We recommend consulting with your own legal counsel if you have questions about your obligations in response to the legal process.
Can I request deletion of a retained transcript?
Once a transcript is de-identified and de-coupled, it becomes part of a general pool of clinical language data with no link to any individual client, clinician, or practice. Our data engineering team can access this pool overall to improve Note Taker, but no one can search for, locate, or retrieve a specific transcript. For this reason, we can’t fulfill deletion requests for transcripts that have been de-identified and de-coupled.
Managing your retention preferences
How can I manage my retention preferences?
You can manage transcript retention at the clinician, client, or session level.
Important: There is no practice-wide transcript retention setting. In group practices, each clinician can manage their own transcript retention preferences independently at the clinician, client, and session levels. Account Owners and practice managers can't manage retention preferences on behalf of clinicians.
Clinician level
When you opt out at the clinician level, no transcripts will be retained for any of your clients or sessions moving forward, including any future clients you add. In a group practice, each clinician manages their own retention setting independently.
Important: Opting out at the clinician level overrides client- and session-level settings.
To opt out at the clinician level on a web browser:
- Navigate to Settings > Profile > Profile and security
- Toggle Retain de-identified data to improve features off
To opt out at the clinician level on the SimplePractice for Clinicians mobile app:
- Tap your profile icon in the top left
- Select Settings > Privacy
- Toggle Retain de-identified data to improve features off
Client level
You can opt out of retaining transcripts for a specific client. This setting applies to all future sessions you have with that client.
To opt out at the client level on a web browser:
- Navigate to the client’s profile and click Edit > Privacy
- Toggle Retain de-identified data to improve features off
To opt out at the client level on the SimplePractice for Clinicians mobile app:
- Navigate to a client profile
- Tap Privacy
- Toggle Retain de-identified data to improve features off
Session level
You can opt out of retaining transcripts for an individual session.
To opt out at the session level on a web browser:
- Navigate to the appointment page
- Open the Session content panel
- Scroll down and select Don’t store this transcript
To opt out at the session level on the SimplePractice for Clinicians mobile app:
- Navigate to the appointment
- Open the progress note
- Select the Note Taker button
- Scroll down and tap Don’t store this transcript
Will opting out of transcript retention affect my ability to use Note Taker?
No, opting out of transcript retention won’t affect your ability to use Note Taker, and won’t affect how Note Taker works before, during, or after your sessions.
Whether you’re opted in or opted out, you’ll still be able to:
- Record audio from a Telehealth and in-person session
- Receive a draft progress note
- Access the transcript for up to 7 days or until the note is signed and locked
- Complete and finalize your documentation as usual
The only difference is what happens after the 7-day review period ends, or earlier if the note is signed and locked:
- If you’re opted out, the transcript will be permanently deleted and won’t be used to improve Note Taker or related AI features
- If you’re opted in, a fully de-identified and de-coupled version of the transcript will be securely retained to help improve Note Taker and related AI features
Client conversations and consent
How can I talk to my clients about transcript retention?
We've created a resource you can share with clients to explain how transcript retention works and how their privacy is protected: Transcript Retention Client Guide.
This guide is designed to support transparent conversations with your clients on transcript retention by explaining what Note Taker is, how de-identification works, and how you maintain control over retention settings at every level.
Will I need to update my client consent forms for transcript retention?
We recommend consulting with your licensing board and/or legal counsel for specific guidance on any changes to your clinical obligations, including but not limited to client consent forms.
If your state requires consent for the use of AI in client care, or if your state requires all parties to consent to being recorded, you can use our soon-to-be updated Consent for Use of AI Tools with De-Identified Transcript Retention form that includes disclosures on SimplePractice’s retention of transcripts. If your state or specialty requires more specific disclosures or consent, you can update that consent form to include the relevant information.