Templates & Guides
Feb 22, 2026
How to Write Better Vet Notes (5 Mistakes Vets Make)
Share to :
Meta title: 5 Vet Note Mistakes (And How to Fix Them) Meta description: Most vets make the same clinical note mistakes — inconsistent format, missing medications, delayed records. Here are the 5 most common and how to fix each one. Target keywords: veterinary clinical notes, vet note mistakes Pillar: 1 — Clinical Note Formats & Templates Funnel stage: Top Internal links: /ai-vet-scribe, /blog/veterinary-soap-notes-guide, /blog/consult-notes-template-for-vets, /blog/ai-veterinary-scribe-pricing-compared
Nobody went to vet school because they loved writing veterinary clinical notes. But your notes are the backbone of everything — continuity of care, legal protection, accurate billing, client communication. When they're done well, everything runs smoother. When they're not, problems compound quietly until something goes wrong.
The good news? Most vets make the same five mistakes. Fix these, and your clinical records go from a liability to an asset.
Some notes are detailed SOAP entries. Others are two-line scribbles. The vaccination consult at 9am gets a thorough write-up. By 4pm, after fifteen consults and a dental, the notes shrink to "dog vomiting, gave cerenia, recheck 3 days."
The problem isn't laziness — it's time pressure. When you're running behind, note quality is the first thing that drops.
Why it matters: Inconsistent notes create real risk. When another vet sees the same patient next week, they can't tell if the sparse notes mean nothing significant happened or if details were missed. For locums stepping into your practice, inconsistent records are a nightmare.
How to fix it: Use a consistent structure for every consult. The SOAP format is the obvious choice — Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan. It doesn't need to be long, but hitting those four sections every time means the essential information is always captured.
Better still, stop writing them yourself. An AI vet scribe generates the same structured format for every consult — whether it's a five-minute vaccination or a thirty-minute workup. The format never drops off at 4pm.
You prescribed amoxicillin-clavulanic acid. But did you record the dose? The concentration? The number of tablets? The frequency? The duration?
Medication details are the most commonly incomplete section in veterinary clinical notes. It's understandable — you've just had a conversation with the owner about their dog's condition, examined the patient, discussed the plan, dispensed the medication, and now you need to type it all up. By the time you get to the notes, the exact numbers feel like they should be obvious.
Until they're not. The patient comes back in a week, the condition hasn't resolved, and you can't tell from the record whether they were on 250mg or 500mg, BID or TID.
Why it matters: Incomplete medication records are a clinical risk and a legal one. If there's ever a complaint or adverse reaction, your notes need to show exactly what was prescribed, at what dose, for how long. "Amox, some tabs" doesn't cut it.
How to fix it: Build medication details into your template structure — drug name, dose (mg/kg), concentration, route, frequency, duration, and number dispensed. Make it a checklist you fill in every time, not something you reconstruct from memory later.
AI vet scribes go further. Whippet Notes has a dedicated medication correction pipeline that picks up drug names and dosages from the consult conversation and formats them correctly in the notes — including Australian-standard drug names, concentrations, and dosing instructions.
This is the big one. You finish a consult, and instead of writing the notes immediately, you see the next patient. Then the next. By lunch, you've got four consults to document from memory. By end of day, it's twelve.
"Note taking has always been one of my lowest priorities," admits Dr Will Gartrell of Frankston Heights Veterinary Centre. He's not alone. Most vets know the notes need doing — they just keep getting pushed back.
Why it matters: Memory degrades fast. Details you'd recall perfectly ten minutes after a consult become hazy after three hours and unreliable after eight. The patient's weight, the exact location of the mass, the owner's specific concerns — these details blur together when you're writing up a full day's notes from the waiting room at 6pm.
Delayed notes are also more likely to be inaccurate. You might confuse details between similar cases or fill gaps with assumptions rather than observations. And from a legal perspective, notes written hours or days after the fact carry less weight than contemporaneous records.
How to fix it: The ideal is to write notes immediately after each consult, but that advice is about as useful as telling someone to just eat less. The real bottleneck is that writing notes takes time — roughly 10 minutes per consult — and there's another patient waiting.
An AI scribe eliminates the delay entirely. You record the consult as it happens, and the notes are generated within minutes. No backlog, no after-hours catch-up, no reconstructing the day from memory.
"Whippet Notes allows me to focus on my patient and client, knowing the details of our conversation are locked away," says Dr Alana Dowdell of Pets And Their People.
You discussed the prognosis with the owner. You explained the treatment options and the costs. You mentioned the risks of anaesthesia. You recommended a dental.
But none of that is in the notes. Just the clinical findings and the treatment plan.
This is one of the most overlooked aspects of veterinary clinical notes. What you said to the client — and what they said to you — is often more important than the clinical examination when it comes to complaints, misunderstandings, and follow-up.
Why it matters: Client complaints rarely come down to clinical errors. They come down to communication gaps. "The vet never told me about the risks." "Nobody mentioned how much it would cost." "I didn't understand the aftercare instructions."
If your notes don't record what was discussed, it's your word against theirs. And in a complaint process, undocumented discussions are treated as if they didn't happen.
How to fix it: Add a client communication section to your notes — what was discussed, what was recommended, what the owner decided, and any concerns they raised. It doesn't need to be a transcript, but it should capture the key points.
This is actually where AI scribes shine most. Because an AI scribe records the entire conversation, it captures the client discussion naturally. Whippet Notes generates a separate client letter for each consult that summarises what was discussed in plain language — covering the consultation findings, the plan, and any instructions for home care.
The dental took ninety minutes. You extracted three teeth, scaled and polished, took radiographs, administered NSAIDs, and prescribed antibiotics. But the consult notes only mention "dental with extractions" — and the invoice reflects it.
Incomplete documentation means incomplete billing. Across 400 consults a month, even small omissions add up to significant lost revenue. The vet who forgets to charge for the nerve block, the fluid therapy, or the additional diagnostics isn't doing anyone a favour — including the practice.
Why it matters: Underbilling doesn't just reduce revenue. It creates inconsistency in your invoicing that confuses clients when they do get charged properly. And it puts pressure on practice margins that affects staffing, equipment, and ultimately patient care.
How to fix it: Build a billable items checklist into your documentation process. Some PMS systems have itemised billing built in, but the notes still need to capture what was done.
Better: use a system that generates billable items automatically. Whippet Notes produces a list of billable items from each consult — procedures, medications dispensed, diagnostics performed — alongside the clinical notes. Nothing gets missed because the AI identifies billable items from the conversation, not from what you remembered to write down.
All five mistakes have the same root cause: time pressure. Vets aren't making these mistakes because they don't know better. They're making them because writing thorough clinical notes takes time they don't have — and something has to give.
The solution isn't working harder. It's removing the bottleneck.
An AI vet scribe records the consult as it happens and generates structured clinical notes, medication records, client communication, and billable items — automatically. No backlog, no shortcuts, no gaps.
"This app is revolutionising my life, so easy to use to capture details," says Dr Alison McKendrick of Glencoe Veterinary Services.
If you want to see what mistake-free notes look like, try Whippet Notes free — 10 consults per month, no credit card required. Or compare your options across AI vet scribe pricing.
Connected
