The questions clinicians ask before they nod.
The ones that come up when a phone lands face down on the table, answered plainly. If yours is missing, write to [email protected].
In the room.
Does it change how I work?
No. It’s patient-operated, on the patient’s phone. There’s nothing to install, nothing to log into, and nothing to chart in it. Your visit runs the way it always has.
What does it cost me or my practice?
Nothing. It’s free to the patient, free to their family, and free to you. We’re funded through research partnerships, and those run on records people have separately chosen to share.
Does it replace the after-visit summary or my note?
No. Your note stays the authoritative record. Care Journal covers what your paperwork can’t reach: what the patient actually retained, the plan in plain language, and the weeks between visits, dated as they happened.
What if the summary gets something wrong?
Treat it like any memory aid a patient brings you. It helps with recall and follow-through, every entry can be edited, and it never outranks your note or your judgment. Medical decisions stay with you.
What kinds of visits does it work in?
Any care conversation the patient wants to keep. It grew up in cancer care, where the instructions are dense, and it works the same way at the dentist, in physical therapy, in a therapy session, or on a telehealth call running on another screen while the phone listens.
My patient is a child, or an older adult who couldn’t run this.
A parent, adult child, or guardian can run the account for them. The caregiver manages the recording, reads the summary, and drives the follow-through, which mirrors how those visits already work.
How does a patient get started?
They download it themselves, and it’s ready in about a minute. You don’t touch their phone. If you’d like cards or a QR code for the waiting room, we print them for you.
Why would I encourage it?
Because the three weeks between visits arrive as dated entries instead of a memory test, and fewer calls start with “I forgot to mention.” A patient who can re-read the plan is a patient who follows it.
The legal questions.
What is Care Journal, legally?
A consumer app the patient runs for their own record. It isn’t a healthcare provider and it isn’t an EHR. It records the patient’s own visit on their own device, writes it up in plain language, and shares only what the patient chooses to share.
Is it a medical device?
No. It does not diagnose, prevent, mitigate, or treat any health condition, injury, illness or disease, and it assigns no clinical grade. Severity is whatever the person says it is.
Is it part of the medical record?
No, unless you decide to bring something from it into your chart. It’s the patient’s own aid for recall and coordination, and your note remains the legal record.
Does handing it out create HIPAA obligations for me?
No. Care Journal works for the patient, on the patient’s device, the way any app they choose does. When a patient sends you a summary, you hold it the way you’d hold anything else a patient brings you.
Do I need a BAA with Care Journal?
No. A BAA covers a vendor handling patient information on your behalf, and Care Journal doesn’t work on your behalf. On our side, every vendor that touches health information signs an agreement to protect it.
Can my patient legally record the visit?
Recording laws vary by state. Federal law needs one person’s consent, and some states need everyone’s. We tell people to say it plainly, and most do. If anyone would rather it stayed off, typing is always there.
Does this create malpractice exposure for me?
Patients already document visits: handwritten notes, a spouse on speakerphone, portal messages afterwards. Care Journal turns that into something consented and accurate. It never presents itself as the legal chart, and it tells patients that medical judgment belongs to their clinicians.
Is it 21 CFR Part 11 compliant?
It isn’t built to be an FDA-regulated records system, and it shouldn’t be used as one. In routine care nothing in it feeds a regulatory submission. A patient on a trial can choose to share entries with their study, and the study’s own systems remain the regulated record.
Ask us the one that is not here.
Free for patients, families, and you. Nothing is shared with anyone unless the patient sends it.