Medical Knowledge and GTM Associate•February 11, 2026•11 min read
Fact checked by Dr. Ben Condon
Doctor’s Note Template
This doctor’s note template, also known as a doctor’s excuse template, provides a structured format to help communicate a patient’s diagnosis, recommended leave, and return-to-work clearance to appropriate authorities.
Document the patient’s care period, including the start and end dates of treatment. It also outlines the diagnosis in clear, professional language to ensure accurate documentation for work or school records.
Specify the recommended leave duration to support the patient’s recovery, including the exact dates they were advised to rest.
Confirm the patient’s fitness to return(to work or school)with a clear statement of their expected return date.The note can also include the healthcare provider’s contact information to address any follow-up question.
A doctor’s note template is a preset document used by healthcare professionals to quickly create official notes verifying a patient’s medical condition. Primarily, doctor note templates are used to provide authentic documentation attesting to an individual's fitness for work or school.These templates typically include fields or mentions of the patient’s details, diagnosis, and the date of issuance. Doctor’s note templates, or medical note templates, offer a standardized and efficient way to provide documentation while saving time in their daily workflow.In this article, we’ll discuss the real-world impact of implementing doctor’s note templates, provide tips on how to write a doctor’s note with examples, and offer an innovative and efficient solution to the manual preparation of doctor’s notes.
Implementing a doctor’s note template may seem like a minor improvement, but it can positively impact the day-to-day practice of healthcare providers in multiple ways:
Helps Prevent Forgery
While the forgery of doctor’s notes is illegal, it’s still unfortunately a common occurrence in both school and work. A standardized template that includes your signature, your practice’s logo, and even a stamp, along with your contact details, can make it difficult if not impossible for counterfeiters to forge.
For added security, you can even add your own QR codes or other unique identifiers to your templates which can be cross-referenced by school administrators and employers to verify legitimacy.
Streamlines Communication Between Stakeholders
Issuing a compliant doctor's excuse for work is essential when dealing with employers and other third parties. Using a standardized doctor’s note template ensures consistent language and formatting, making doctor's notes for work legally sound, verifiable, and professionally presented.
it also streamlines communication by clearly conveying the patient's health status and fitness for duty, reducing unnecessary follow-ups and expediting documentation workflows for both your practice and the requesting party.
How to Write a Doctor’s Note Template with Examples
Follow these simple steps below to build your own effective template, and review each example to understand how each section should look in practice:
1. Start with Your Information and Practice Letterhead
Open with your clinic’s name, address, and contact information. You may also include your practice’s logo if you have an official one.
Example: [Clinic/Practice’s Logo] St. Denis Medical Center 123 Wellness St. (456) 789-1011
2. Include Basic Patient Information
Start the note with essential patient details such as their full name, date of birth, and the date of the note’s issuance. This ensures that the document is personalized and correctly linked to the patient in question.
Example: Patient Name: Mary Beth Gaskill Date of Birth: 07/12/1993 Date of Issue: 01/14/2025
3. State the Note’s Purpose
In clear and simple terms, explain why the note is being issued. Reasons might include verifying an illness, recommending rest and time off, or clearing a patient for work, school, or other activities.
Example: This note confirms that Ms. Mary Beth Gaskill was evaluated at our clinic and diagnosed with influenza. She is advised to rest from work from January 15 to 16, 2025.
4. Conclude with a Signature and Official Stamp (if applicable)
Include your signature to authenticate the note. If you’re using an official stamp or seal, you can apply it in this section for added legitimacy and professionalism.
Example: [signature] Dr. John Morgan, MD [St. Denis Medical Center Seal]
Doctor’s Note Template Example
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Writing doctor’s notes from scratch may seem simple and straightforward, but it can quickly become tedious and error-prone when you have to write multiple notes per day. Luckily, thanks to recent AI advancements in the medical field, there’s an even more efficient solution than a good doctor’s note template.
Easily Prepare Doctor’s Note Templates with Heidi
By automating the creation of doctor’s notes with the help of Heidi, general practitioners can focus more on actual patient care and less on paperwork.
Gil Jelin, a physiotherapist, used to stay late at the clinic finishing her daily case notes. But with Heidi's help, she now completes most of her documentation while treating patients. This has eliminated her after-hours work and given her the work-life balance she never thought possible.
Here’s how Heidi helps your medical practice in three simple steps.
Transcribe - Your patient explains their symptoms, medical history, and other concerns over a microphone and Heidi captures every essential detail, word-for-word.
Customize - Select your preferred doctor’s note template and watch as Heidi perfectly rephrases and transcribes the essential information into the appropriate format.
Transform - Additionally, you can ask Heidi to create anything else you need; may it be patient summaries, or other documents.
Heidi is HIPAA-compliant and ISO-certified, among other data privacy and security standards and regulations. Currently, over 100,000 healthcare professionals globally trust Heidi to streamline their day-to-day practices.
This doctor’s excuse template guides clinicians to effectively communicate a patient’s inability to work for health reasons. It includes fields for providing treatment periods and recovery status.
This template helps physicians quickly and accurately create documentation for patients who need time off work. This doctor's note for work template covers key details such as patient information, diagnosis, recommended time off, and treatment plans. When used with Heidi, this template can be automatically populated based on the details from the patient’s visit.
This medical note template is designed to help clinicians provide formal medical documentation to school administrators, explaining the reason for a student's sick leave. Use with Heidi to generate accurate and professional school excuse notes easily.
This urgent care doctor’s note template is designed for healthcare professionals who need to provide official documentation for patients who require time off due to medical issues. It captures the presenting complaint, examination findings, treatment recommendations, and anticipated recovery period.
A hospital letter for work is a document that formalized a patient's medical leave. This template is used by healthcare professionals to indicate the patient's diagnosis, leave duration, and resumption date and clearly communicate them to employers or educational institutions.
Can I customize a doctor’s note template for different patient needs?
Yes, doctor’s note templates can be customized to include patient-specific details such as diagnosis, recommended leave duration, and instructions for treatment. If you visit Heidi’s Template Community, you’ll find hundreds of templates contributed by other medical professionals which you can either use as ready-made templates, or customize to fit your specific needs.
Are there any legal considerations when issuing a doctor’s note?
Healthcare providers must follow privacy regulations like HIPAA or GDPR, ensuring that only necessary medical information is disclosed with the patient’s consent. Additionally, medical practitioners in the USA also have to consider state-specific regulations like the CCPA to ensure they’re complying with data protection requirements related to the collection, storage, and sharing of patient information.
What tools can I use to efficiently create doctor’s note templates?
Health practitioners can use Heidi, a powerful AI medical scribe that allows them to quickly generate accurate, customizable doctor’s note templates. By standardizing and automating the documentation process, Heidi saves doctor’s time time, reduces the risk of errors, and allows them to focus more on patient care.
Can I use Heidi to auto-complete a hospital work excuse form?
Yes, Heidi can automatically fill out forms based on any contextual information or session details. For example, simply format your hospital work excuse form with proper field labels then use Heidi to auto-populate all the form fields. Here's a quick video that demonstrates how Heidi's form filling features work.
