Getting started

Start here: PT, OT and SLP

Your first day in ArkCloud Rehab: signing in, what to check before your first patient, the screens you will use every day, and how a visit goes from the schedule to a signed note.

Written for: Physical therapists and PTAs · Occupational therapists and OTAs · Speech-language pathologists

First sign-in

Sign in with the email address and password your administrator set up (Signing in).
Set up an authenticator app if asked. Even if it is optional for you, it is worth doing: signing a note then asks for a six-digit code rather than your password (Multi-factor authentication).
You land in Rehab, or on the launcher if your organisation has several products. Use Open … automatically on the Rehab card to skip the launcher next time.

Check before your first patient

Field or control	What it means
You are set up to sign for billing	Ask your administrator to confirm your discipline (PT, OT or SLP), your licence and its expiry date, and your NPI are recorded under Clinician billing. You can write and sign notes without this, but your visits are held from billing.
You have the Clinical staff function	If you are given Registration only, you cannot write clinical notes. Clinicians are normally Agents with the Clinical function.
Your notes match your discipline	Every note has the same core sections, plus discipline sections: for PT, mobility, transfers and gait, balance, strength and range of motion; for OT, occupational profile, ADLs and IADLs, upper-extremity function; for SLP, communication, cognitive communication, voice and fluency, AAC and swallowing. The discipline sections are optional.

Your set-up
Capability	Status	What that means here
Billable signing authority for clinicians	Available with configuration	A clinician can sign, co-sign or amend a note only when they have a discipline grant for the episode, an active staff record and a current licence; without them the signature is refused. Billing checks the same records again as of the signing date.Requires: An administrator completes each clinician's set-up under Rehab settings, Clinicians, including their staff record and licence.
Registration and clinical staff functions (Rehab)	Available with configuration	Separates registration work (demographics, contact details, insurance, consent) from clinical work (clinical intake review and clinical documentation) for each person. Until a person is given a function, they can do both.Requires: An administrator assigns each person Registration, Clinical or both under Rehab settings, Staff functions.

A visit, from schedule to signed note

Open the schedule. When the front desk checks your patient in, the row shows Checked in. You are not sent an alert, so keep the schedule open.
Review the patient's chart and the episode: precautions, allergies, goals, the plan of care and previous notes. See The patient's chart.
Select Start visit. The Write note link appears only after that, and opens the episode with this visit already chosen.
Choose the note from New document: Initial Evaluation, Visit note, Progress Report, Re-evaluation, Plan of Care or Discharge Summary. See Note types and Writing a SOAP visit note.
Document the visit. Values from the last visit are never copied in for you. Optional AI help can draft text for you to review (see below).
Sign. You confirm with your authenticator code, or your password if you have none; that covers your signatures for the next 10 minutes. If the note contains AI text, you also confirm you reviewed it. See Signing, co-signing and amending notes.
Complete the visit on the schedule. A completed visit with a signed note is released for billing.

Screens you use every day

Field or control	What it means
Today (dashboard)	Outstanding clinical work across your episodes.
Schedule	Today's visits, check-in status, Start visit, Write note and Complete.
Notes	Records and revenue → Notes: unsigned notes, oldest first. A note unsigned for more than 3 days shows as overdue.
Work queue	Unsigned notes, co-signatures, plans of care and progress reports due, and missing discharge summaries. See Work queue.
Patient search	The search field in the Rehab header (Ctrl K) finds a patient and opens the chart.

In a visit note, the AI can draft Subjective, Objective, Assessment and Plan from what you recorded for this visit. In a progress report or discharge summary, it can draft the narrative sections from recorded facts. You insert, edit or discard each section; the signed note is yours. There is no AI draft for an evaluation, re-evaluation or plan of care.

AI and voice in your notes
Capability	Status	What that means here
AI draft of a visit note (SOAP)	Available with configuration	Inside a visit note, proposes Subjective, Objective, Assessment and Plan from what the clinician recorded for that visit and the episode's own record. The clinician inserts, edits or discards each section.Requires: The organisation AI switch on (the default). Where the clinic has installed the patient AI agreement, the patient's signed yes to AI-assisted notes.
AI draft of progress report and discharge summary narratives	Available with configuration	Drafts the progress-toward-goals and reassessment sections of a progress report, and the course-of-care and goals-met sections of a discharge summary, from recorded facts only. It never drafts goals, the plan of care, discharge status or recommendations.Requires: The organisation AI switch on (the default).
Visit recording and dictation with speech-to-text	Limited preview	Built into Rehab visit and evaluation notes: speech is transcribed on ArkCloud's own servers and the clinician decides what to use. Accuracy has been tested on synthetic speech only, and it is not released for routine clinical use.Requires: The organisation's voice setting switched on, the recording permission, and in-the-room consent for each recording.

Read AI drafts in Rehab and Clinical safety and accountability before you use it.