Every minute an urgent care provider spends typing is a minute a patient spends waiting. Generative AI can now hand a meaningful share of those minutes back: drafting a SOAP note from the encounter itself, producing discharge instructions in seconds, and turning a 30-second dictation into a complete procedure note. The catch is that most AI tools were never built to handle protected health information.
This guide walks through seven ways urgent care and walk-in clinic teams use HIPAA-compliant AI to reduce documentation time without compromising care quality or compliance. Each use case includes a sample prompt you can adapt to your own workflow.
Why urgent care documentation is a solvable problem
The math of clinical documentation is unforgiving. Ambulatory physicians spend an average of 5.8 hours in the EHR for every eight hours of scheduled patient time, according to a study of more than 200,000 physicians published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine and highlighted by the American Medical Association. In a walk-in setting, that burden is compressed: 30 to 50 patients per shift, presenting complaints that swing from a pediatric ear infection to chest pain within the same hour, and rarely a dedicated scribe in the room.
What changed is not the workload. It is the tooling. Generative AI now handles the structured, repetitive writing that surrounds clinical judgment, so providers spend their time reviewing and finalizing notes instead of composing every one from a blank screen.
BastionGPT is built for exactly this environment: a HIPAA-compliant AI assistant and unlimited AI Scribe designed for healthcare workflows, with a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) included on every plan and zero data selling to AI providers.
Seven ways urgent care teams use AI
1. Drafting SOAP notes at the point of care
The SOAP note is the backbone of urgent care documentation, and writing a thorough one for every patient under time pressure is where providers feel the squeeze most. BastionGPT's AI Scribe captures audio from the patient encounter and generates a structured draft SOAP note automatically. You review and edit the draft instead of composing from scratch, so the final note reflects the actual encounter rather than a reconstruction from memory at the end of a shift.
Multi-speaker recognition (up to ten speakers) distinguishes provider, patient, and family member voices, which matters in urgent care rooms where a parent or caregiver is often part of the conversation.
Sample prompt (note drafting from bullet points):
Draft a SOAP note for an urgent care visit. The patient is a 34-year-old male presenting with right ankle pain after a fall playing basketball. No fracture on X-ray. Assessment: Grade 2 lateral ankle sprain. Plan: RICE, NSAIDs, ace wrap, follow up with PCP in 7-10 days, return precautions given.
2. Generating discharge instructions in seconds
Discharge instructions are among the most repetitive writing tasks in urgent care. They need to be clear enough to follow at home, clinically accurate, and specific to the visit. Describe the condition, the treatment given, and the follow-up plan, and BastionGPT drafts patient-facing language you can review, print, or send.
Sample prompt:
Write discharge instructions for a patient diagnosed with a urinary tract infection. They were prescribed a 5-day course of nitrofurantoin. Include what to expect, when to take the medication, warning signs to watch for, and when to return to urgent care or go to the ER.
The same approach works for wound care, splint care, return precautions after head injury, and post-procedural guidance after laceration repair.
3. Documenting procedures by dictation
Procedure notes support billing, continuity of care, and occasionally legal or insurance review. Dictating during or immediately after the procedure and letting AI structure the note is faster and more accurate than transcribing from memory hours later.
Sample prompt:
Write a procedure note for a laceration repair. Location: 3 cm linear laceration to the left forearm, no involvement of tendons or neurovascular structures. Irrigation performed, wound closed with 4-0 nylon simple interrupted sutures x6. Patient tolerated procedure well. Instructions for suture removal in 7-10 days.
4. Drafting prior authorization requests and appeals
Prior authorizations pull providers and coordinators away from the floor, particularly for imaging, specialty referrals, and higher-cost medications. BastionGPT drafts prior authorization narratives and appeal letters from the clinical picture you describe. That support matters most on nights and weekends, when the full administrative team is off but clinical decisions still need documentation.
Sample prompt:
Draft a prior authorization request for an MRI of the right knee for a 52-year-old patient with acute knee pain, hemarthrosis on exam, and a mechanism consistent with ligamentous injury. X-ray negative for fracture. PCP referral sent. Insurance is [carrier name].
5. Writing referral letters and consult notes
A clear referral letter helps the receiving specialist understand the clinical picture without starting over, and it cuts back-and-forth between offices. BastionGPT produces a professional referral letter in a consistent format from the visit details you provide, in far less time than composing one manually.
Sample prompt:
Write a referral letter to orthopedics for a patient with a distal radius fracture confirmed on X-ray. The fracture appears minimally displaced. Patient is a 67-year-old female, right hand dominant, mechanism was a fall on outstretched hand. Splinted in the ED, follow-up recommended within 3-5 days.
6. Supporting front desk and operations teams
Documentation burden in urgent care extends past the exam room. Front desk staff and clinic coordinators use BastionGPT to draft patient notification emails, write and update clinic policies and SOPs, create training materials for new hires, and summarize documents for operational review.
Sample prompt:
Write a patient communication email letting patients know our urgent care clinic will have extended hours on July 4th weekend. Include our address, hours, walk-in policy, and a note that we can handle non-emergency needs to help reduce ER congestion.
7. Creating patient education materials on demand
Generic printed handouts rarely reflect what happened in the visit. BastionGPT generates condition-specific, plain-language education materials tailored to the encounter, at the reading level you specify. It also drafts materials in multiple languages on request, which helps in pediatric visits where parents need clear guidance and with patients whose first language is not English.
Sample prompt:
Write a one-page patient education sheet on managing a second-degree burn at home. Include wound care steps, signs of infection, when to return to urgent care, and over-the-counter pain management options. Write at a 6th-grade reading level.
Compliance in urgent care: what to look for in an AI tool
Urgent care sits at a demanding compliance intersection. Walk-in volume means more patients and more PHI in a compressed timeframe. Staff turnover runs higher than in many traditional practice settings, and multi-location chains add data governance complexity.
General-purpose AI tools were not designed for this. Standard ChatGPT does not include a Business Associate Agreement and is not intended for use with protected health information. BastionGPT is HIPAA compliant by design:
- BAA included on every plan, including individual plans
- AES-256 encryption at rest and HTTPS/TLS encryption in transit
- HITRUST and ISO 27001-certified data centers in the USA, Canada, and Australia
- Chats and transcripts wiped after 30 days by default; you can retain them longer or delete them sooner
- Prompts, documents, and audio are never shared with OpenAI or sold to other AI providers, and never used for model training
For urgent care operators managing multiple locations, the Ultra plan adds custom security configurations, tailored legal terms, and a dedicated support representative: enterprise controls that help standardize AI use across a larger team without creating a compliance patchwork.
Getting started in an urgent care workflow
There is no EMR integration project to schedule. BastionGPT works alongside Epic, Cerner, Meditech, and other major EMR systems through a simple copy-paste or document-upload workflow. Providers run the AI Scribe during encounters or draft notes between patients in the chat interface. Either way, the goal is the same: less time reconstructing documentation after the fact, more time in the room with the next patient.
"BastionGPT has reshaped the way I practice medicine, teach, and manage day-to-day operations."
Dr. Adil Manzoor, DO, MBA/MS, Internal Medicine and Pediatrics
Frequently asked questions
Is BastionGPT HIPAA compliant?
Yes. BastionGPT is HIPAA compliant by design, and a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) is included with every plan. It also supports PIPEDA, PIPA, and PHIPA requirements in Canada and APP requirements in Australia.
Will AI replace clinical judgment in urgent care?
No. BastionGPT drafts documentation; providers review, edit, and approve every note before it enters the record. The AI takes on the writing workload that surrounds clinical judgment so providers can spend more time on patient care.
Does BastionGPT integrate with our EMR?
BastionGPT works alongside Epic, Cerner, Meditech, and other major EMR systems using copy-paste or document uploads. No IT setup or integration build is required, so teams can start the same day.
Is patient data used to train AI models?
No. Prompts, uploads, and audio are never shared with OpenAI or sold to other third-party AI providers and are never used for AI training. Chats and transcripts are wiped after 30 days by default, and users keep full ownership of their data.
How much does BastionGPT cost for urgent care teams?
Plans start at $20 per user per month, with a BAA included at every tier and unlimited AI Scribe on all plans.
Try BastionGPT free for 7 days
BastionGPT is available for individual providers and urgent care teams of any size. Plans start at $20/user/month, a BAA is included with every plan, and there are no hidden fees. Start your free 7-day trial.
BastionGPT assists healthcare professionals with documentation and administrative tasks. It does not replace professional judgment. Clinicians review all AI-generated output before it becomes part of the medical record.
