# AI Medical Scribe Glossary

> Plain-English definitions of the terms Australian clinicians meet when evaluating an AI clinical scribe.

## AI medical scribe

Software that captures a clinician-patient consultation via microphone, transcribes the audio to text, and generates a structured clinical note (typically in SOAP format). AI scribes are documentation aids only — they do not diagnose, prescribe, or provide clinical decision support. Every output requires clinician review.

## SOAP note

The standard structured format for Australian clinical notes: **S**ubjective (what the patient reported), **O**bjective (examination findings, vitals, investigations), **A**ssessment (clinician’s impression), **P**lan (what happens next). TeleScribe generates SOAP notes by default, plus 18 other note types.

## TGA Digital Scribes guidance

The Therapeutic Goods Administration’s published guidance (5 February 2026) defining when an AI clinical scribe is and is not a regulated medical device. A scribe that only transcribes and structures clinical conversations is NOT a medical device. A scribe that analyses or interprets conversations — generating diagnoses, differentials, prognosis, or treatment recommendations not stated by the clinician — IS a medical device requiring ARTG registration.

Source: https://www.tga.gov.au/resources/resource/guidance/digital-scribes

## AHPRA

Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency — the national body administering registration and accreditation for 16 regulated health professions in Australia. All TeleScribe users must be AHPRA-registered.

Source: https://www.ahpra.gov.au/

## MBS item number

A code from the Medicare Benefits Schedule identifying a specific consultation type or procedure for Medicare billing purposes. TeleScribe does not provide billing advice but can surface MBS-aware documentation prompts for clinician verification.

Source: https://www.mbsonline.gov.au/

## Medicare telehealth exemption

A set of formal categories (nine as of 1 November 2025) under which a telehealth consult with a patient a clinician has not seen face-to-face in the previous 12 months may still attract a Medicare rebate. TeleScribe’s TeleCheck feature surfaces these pathways for clinician verification per consult with audit-logged proformas.

## TeleCheck

The name of TeleScribe’s built-in Medicare telehealth eligibility check. Cross-references the patient’s postcode against Australian disaster-declaration data (DisasterAssist) stored locally in an Australian Supabase database. Returns a traffic-light result (green/amber/red) and surfaces nine exemption pathways as toggleable prompts.

## RACGP Standards 5th Edition

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners’ Standards for general practices, 5th Edition. Sets accreditation requirements including clinical documentation, consent, and record amendment. TeleScribe’s addendum and revert features are designed to comply with RACGP Standards 5th Edition for post-finalisation record amendments.

## Clinical decision support (CDS)

Software that generates diagnoses, differentials, risk scores, or treatment recommendations. CDS is a regulated medical device under the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 and requires ARTG registration in Australia. TeleScribe is NOT clinical decision support — it is a documentation aid only.

## Whisper / Deepgram nova-3-medical

The underlying speech recognition models used for TeleScribe’s transcription. Deepgram nova-3-medical is the primary layer (medically tuned, Australian English optimised). OpenAI gpt-4o-mini-transcribe, OpenAI whisper-1, and Groq whisper-large-v3-turbo are the three fallback layers. None of these providers are permitted to train on TeleScribe’s patient data under contract.

## Privacy Act 1988 (Cth)

The Australian federal legislation governing personal information handling. TeleScribe stores transcripts and clinical notes in an Australian-hosted Supabase database (Sydney region, ap-southeast-2) in compliance with Australian Privacy Principles (APPs). Audio is processed in-memory and never written to disk.

Source: https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/australian-privacy-principles

## ARTG (Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods)

The TGA’s register of approved therapeutic goods including Software as a Medical Device (SaMD). TeleScribe is not ARTG-registered because it operates as a documentation aid rather than a medical device, per TGA Digital Scribes guidance.

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**Last verified:** 2026-04-15. Canonical URL: https://www.telescribe.com.au/glossary.