Dictating into TherapyNotes with Parakeety
Short answer: with Parakeety running in the menu bar, click into any text field inside TherapyNotes, hold the section key (§), talk, release. The transcript pastes at the cursor. TherapyNotes is browser-based and Parakeety pastes via the system clipboard, so it works in every section of every note template without any app-specific setup. TherapyNotes leans toward the medical-model end of the practice-management spectrum: deeper note templates, e-prescribing for psychiatrists, treatment-plan structures that map onto insurance documentation requirements. The administrative side gets clicked through with dropdowns; the writing-up is where the day stretches.
Where dictation fits inside TherapyNotes
The TherapyNotes fields worth dictating into:
- Session-note section bodies. BIRP, SOAP, DAP, GIRP, PIE and the other formats your practice uses. The narrative inside each labeled section.
- Treatment plans. Long-form goals, objectives, interventions and clinical rationale. Dictation is meaningfully faster for these than typing.
- Intake assessments. Presenting concerns, history, mental-status examination narrative, formulation. The intake is the longest write-up most therapists do; dictation pays back most here.
- Treatment-plan reviews and updates. The periodic reviews that update goals and document progress.
- Medication-management narrative (for psychiatrists). Clinical reasoning around medication choice, response, side effects, plan to titrate.
- Secure messages and treatment-team communication. Messages between treatment-team members in a group practice.
A worked example: an intake assessment
The intake template has roughly twelve narrative sections to populate. Typing each one as you go through the assessment in the room is too slow; the conversation outpaces the keyboard. The pattern most clinicians settle into is: take rough notes during the session, write up the formal assessment afterwards. Typed, that write-up is forty minutes or more. Dictated section by section, holding the section key for each one:
Click into the Presenting Concerns section. Hold. Speak the concerns the way you would tell them to a supervisor. Release. Click into History of Presenting Concerns. Hold. Continue.
The whole twelve-section intake assessment comes down to fifteen minutes, including the time spent reading back and correcting the occasional medication name or DSM-5 code that the speech model rendered ambiguously. That hour saved is the difference between staying late and going home on time.
Tips specific to TherapyNotes
- Click into each labeled section in turn. The note editor has many adjacent fields; the cursor needs to be in the section you intend before you hold the key.
- Custom templates work the same. If your practice has built custom templates inside TherapyNotes, they are still just sequences of text fields; Parakeety pastes into each one.
- Use the treatment-plan section structure. Goals, objectives, interventions. Dictate each piece in its own field; the structure stays clean.
- Read before signing. Standard advice for any speech-model-generated documentation: the occasional medication or unusual term needs correction. Reading the note before locking it catches it.
- Co-signing workflows work normally. Supervisor / supervisee co-signing in TherapyNotes is unchanged; dictation only affects the writing pass, not the workflow around it.
- TherapyNotes' own help resources. TherapyNotes' Help Center documents its template library and note-signing workflow; those templates are what Parakeety pastes into section by section.
Privacy for psychiatry and behavioral health
Behavioral-health records carry a heightened privacy expectation under HIPAA (psychotherapy notes have their own carve-out), under state laws that protect mental-health information specifically, and under the professional ethical codes that apply to the clinicians who write them. Parakeety keeps the audio leg of dictation on the Mac, the same local-first model that defines on-device Mac dictation, which removes the cloud-transcription-vendor question from the workflow entirely. The transcript reaches TherapyNotes under TherapyNotes' existing BAA, the same as if you had typed it.
The therapist-side piece is Parakeety for therapists and counselors; the broader compliance comparison is HIPAA and dictation: architectural vs contractual privacy.
FAQ
- Does Parakeety work inside TherapyNotes?
- Yes. TherapyNotes is a browser-based practice management application; Parakeety pastes at the cursor in any of its text fields, including the section bodies of every note template, treatment plans, secure messages and any administrative free-text fields.
- Can I dictate using the TherapyNotes template library?
- Yes. TherapyNotes has a deep template library (BIRP, SOAP, DAP, GIRP, PIE, narrative, and others depending on practice setup). Whichever template you open, click into a section field and hold the section key. The template structure stays intact; the narrative inside each section is what comes from dictation.
- What about HIPAA compliance with TherapyNotes in the loop?
- TherapyNotes is a HIPAA-compliant covered service with a Business Associate Agreement for the practices that use it. Adding a separate cloud transcription tool would mean another business associate processing the audio. Parakeety avoids that: audio stays on the Mac, transcript reaches TherapyNotes via ordinary keyboard-equivalent input. Audio never enters anyone else's pipeline. The wider framing is in HIPAA and dictation: architectural vs contractual privacy.
- Will dictation work in the eRx and medication management screens for psychiatrists?
- Yes. The free-text fields associated with prescribing notes, prior-authorization supporting text, and the patient-instruction blocks all accept Parakeety input the same way the note bodies do. Structured medication selection still happens through the dropdowns and search; the prose around it gets dictated.
Try it
Parakeety is a Mac menu-bar app. Hold the section key, talk, release; your words paste at the cursor in whichever app you were typing into, including every input field inside TherapyNotes. Audio never leaves the machine. There is a free 7-day trial with no card required. After that it is $30 once.