Daily Progress Note Template

Get access to a free daily progress note template, helping healthcare practitioners assess their patients' progress and improve the quality and accuracy of their documentation.

By Joshua Napilay on Mar 06, 2024.

Fact Checked by RJ Gumban.

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What is a Daily Progress Note Template?

Healthcare practitioners are required to write different kinds of clinical documentation. These records help to ensure that the delivery of care is as transparent as possible and that practitioners are kept well informed. One of the most common forms of clinical documentation is called progress notes. As the name suggests, these documents are written by practitioners in an attempt to track the progress of their patients. Progress notes are legal documents that can be shared amongst various third parties, including other members of a patient’s care team, insurance providers, lawyers, and the patient’s family members. Although progress notes are a requirement and therefore most practitioners will have a general idea of how to write them, they can still be extremely time-consuming. To help practitioners improve the accuracy and organization of their notes while also reducing the amount of time spent writing them, we have created a daily progress notes template. When patients are in an inpatient facility and/or are in contact with their provider every day, a daily progress note needs to be written. This document records the progress that the patient has been making and helps to guarantee both compliance and high-quality care. As you will see, the PDF template resource is a well-designed and easily applicable tool guaranteed to benefit you and your healthcare practice.

Printable Daily Progress Note Template

Check out these daily progress note templates to improve your clinical documentation, productivity, and treatment outcomes.

How to Use This Template for Daily Progress Note

We understand that the daily lives of healthcare providers are typically very busy. In order to effectively utilize a tool like our daily progress note template, it needs to be easily used. This is why we’ve ensured the template is applicable by simply following these steps: 

Step One: Download the PDF

The first thing you need to do is actually download the PDF template. We’ve included a link to the template further down on this page, and if you click on this link you’ll be taken directly to a PDF reader. From here, you can either edit the document as it is or download it onto your device where it can be accessed later. 

Step Two: Complete the note 

After you have had a session or an encounter with a patient, it’s time to write your progress notes. If you’ve saved these onto your device they should be very easily accessible. You have a couple of options regarding how you can write your progress notes using the template. You can either edit the note on your computer, or you can print the template and fill in a physical copy. 

Step Three: Save the progress note securely 

Progress notes contain PHI, which means they need to be stored according to HIPAA regulations. Once again you can choose whether to store your documents online or in a physical location, although typically online locations have more security safeguards in place. In addition to security, you also want to ensure your documentation can be easily accessed. Practitioners frequently refer back to older progress notes to assess how their patient’s health has progressed, so it’s important that these notes are accessible.

Daily Progress Note Example (Sample)

So that you can visualize exactly what a daily progress note looks like in action, we’ve created a sample document. This template example is based on a fictional encounter with a patient at an aged care facility, and although the contents of the template will change depending on what field of healthcare you work in, the general structure of the document will remain the same.

Download this Daily Progress Note Example (Sample) here:

Daily Progress Note Example (Sample)

Who Can Use this Printable Daily Progress Note Template?

In the healthcare industry, every practitioner that treats patients is required to write progress notes. We have tried to ensure that our printable daily progress note template is applicable to as many fields of healthcare as possible, including the following:

  • Psychologists
  • Psychiatrists
  • Counselors
  • General Practitioners
  • Physical Therapists
  • Occupational Therapists
  • Mental Health Therapists 
  • Nurses
  • Aged Care Workers
  • Social Workers 

However, while these practitioners may definitely find some use for this progress note template, it has been specifically designed for providers who are treating patients every day. For this reason, this template may be best suited for nurses, disability workers, and aged care workers who are working at an inpatient facility. These practitioners are more likely to have an encounter or session with a patient at least once a day. The types of patients who receive care every day will differ, but they will be those who are treated at a facility for longer than one day.

Why is This Template Useful for Healthcare Practitioners?

This daily progress note template has a range of different uses for healthcare practitioners. Considering the various clinical and administrative tasks that practitioners are required to complete, it makes sense that they are on the lookout for tools that can boost their productivity: which is exactly what our template aims to do. Other uses of implementing our daily progress note template into your healthcare practice include: 

  • Organization: Maintaining organization is important in every facet of clinical documentation, but this is especially the case if you are writing progress notes every single day. Tracking the daily progress of patients is very important, but these documents can become convoluted if they are not written in an organized manner. With our template, you will be able to streamline the organization of these progress notes and ensure they are all equally well-formatted. 
  • Saves time: One of the best outcomes of implementing this daily progress note template is the time that it will save at your practice. You no longer have to worry about organizing the formatting and structure of your progress notes and instead simply have to access the PDF template and edit it directly from there.

Why Use Carepatron For Daily Progress Notes?

Writing progress notes can be an extremely time-consuming aspect of working in healthcare but it is nevertheless necessary. In order to streamline the process of writing clinical documents in an effective way, we think that practice management software like Carepatron could be the best solution. Carepatron is an all-in-one cloud-based platform that is integrated with a range of tools designed to simplify the process of writing clinical documentation. In addition to granting access to a robust set of note and form templates, Carepatron also offers voice-to-text transcription software, guaranteed to save you countless hours that are typically spent writing. Further, Carepatron takes compliance very seriously and has sophisticated storage capabilities, allowing you to store your documentation in a secure and protected way.

If you are looking for a solution to more than just clinical documentation, then don’t worry – Carepatron still has you covered. With medical billing, coding, scheduling, patient engagement, and mobile health features, Carepatron is guaranteed to optimize both clinical and administrative processes at your healthcare practice, What are you waiting for? Get started with Carepatron for free today.

Daily Progress Notes App
How long should a daily progress note be?
How long should a daily progress note be?

Commonly asked questions

How long should a daily progress note be?

Although there is no exact definitive answer to this question, a good rule of thumb is to keep a progress note between 1 – 2 pages. This ensures that you have included enough information to cover all important details without being overly lengthy or wordy.

What do I do if I make a mistake on my daily progress note?

Although everyone makes mistakes and this is an expected aspect of working in healthcare, you need to keep in mind that there is a specific error protocol that needs to be followed. If you make a mistake, you simply have to draw a single line through it and then write the date and your initials. This ensures that there is transparency surrounding the error and you can trace it at a future date.

Does HIPAA apply to daily progress notes?

Yes, HIPAA applies to all progress notes. Not only are you legally required to write progress notes, but you are also required to store them appropriately. This means storing them somewhere where they are protected by electronic and physical safeguards to prevent unauthorized access.

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