SOAP vs. DAP vs. BIRP Notes: Which Format Should You Use?

If you’ve moved between a hospital unit, a behavioral health program, and a community agency, you’ve probably been asked to write notes three different ways. The acronyms change, but the job doesn’t: record what happened, what it means, and what comes next, clearly enough that the next clinician can act on it.

This guide explains each format, compares them side by side, and shows the same encounter written all three ways, so you can choose the right one for your setting or switch between them with confidence.

All three are progress note formats: structured templates for documenting a single patient or client encounter. They differ in how they divide information, not in how much care they require.

What is a SOAP note?

A SOAP note has four sections: Subjective, Objective, Assessment, and Plan. The structure comes from the problem-oriented medical record developed by physician Lawrence Weed, and StatPearls describes the SOAP note as both a communication document between health professionals and a checklist that works as a cognitive aid.

• Subjective: what the patient reports, such as symptoms, concerns, and history in their own words
• Objective: what you observe or measure, such as vital signs, exam findings, test results, and appearance
• Assessment: your clinical interpretation of the subjective and objective information
• Plan: next steps, such as treatment, orders, education, referrals, and follow-up

SOAP is the most widely recognized of the three. It’s common in physician and multidisciplinary progress notes, primary care, and allied health, which makes it the format other disciplines are most likely to read quickly.

What is a DAP note?

A DAP note has three sections: Data, Assessment, and Plan. The key difference from SOAP is that Data combines subjective and objective information in one section. Everything factual about the session goes there: what the client said, what you observed, and any scores or measures.

DAP is commonly used in counseling and ongoing therapy, where notes track progress across many sessions and a separate Objective section may add little.

What is a BIRP note?

A BIRP note has four sections: Behavior, Intervention, Response, and Plan.

• Behavior: how the client presented, including mood, actions, statements, and what brought them in
• Intervention: what you did, such as the technique, skill, education, or service provided
• Response: how the client responded to that intervention
• Plan: next steps and follow-up

BIRP is common in community mental health, substance use programs, and case management. In these settings, showing what you did and how the client responded is central to the record.

What other note formats might you see?

SOAP, DAP, and BIRP aren’t the only options. You may also run into DAR (Data, Action, Response), a focus-charting format used in some nursing settings; PIE (Problem, Intervention, Evaluation), another nursing format organized around a problem; and GIRP (Goal, Intervention, Response, Plan), a behavioral health variant of BIRP that starts with the treatment goal. The same principles in this guide apply to all of them.

The biggest differences are whether the patient’s report and your observations are kept apart, and whether your intervention gets its own section.

Start with what your organization requires. Many employers, programs, and payers set a preferred format, and your EHR may already be built around one. Documentation requirements usually focus on what a note contains, such as medical necessity, the service provided, and the plan, rather than on which acronym it follows. When your organization does specify a format, follow it.

When you have a choice, these questions will point you to the right one:

When is SOAP the best choice?

Choose SOAP when other disciplines will read your note or when it matters whether information was reported or observed. Physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and therapists from other teams read SOAP quickly. Keeping the patient’s report separate from your observation matters most when a condition is changing, when findings conflict, or when the note may later be reviewed. For example, “Patient states pain is 2/10” and “Patient grimacing and guarding left side” belong in different places.

When is DAP the best choice?

Choose DAP for routine, ongoing counseling sessions. When the main question is “how is the client progressing?”, DAP’s single Data section keeps notes shorter without losing the essentials.

When is BIRP the best choice?

Choose BIRP when your work is built around specific interventions, as in case management, skills groups, and substance use treatment. BIRP gives what you did and how the client responded their own sections, which makes progress, or the lack of it, easy to see.

Here’s one fictional follow-up visit documented three ways. A client is seen two weeks after starting a sleep routine plan for stress-related insomnia.

The facts are the same in all three. What changes is the emphasis. SOAP keeps the client’s report (including their own sleep log) separate from what the clinician observed, DAP is the most compact, and BIRP puts the teaching and the client’s response front and center.

The format is only the frame. These habits matter more:

• Be specific and measurable. “Sleeping about 5 hours, up from 4” is more useful than “sleeping better.”
• Link the assessment to the data. Every conclusion should be traceable to something you recorded.
• Write a plan someone else can follow. Name the next step, who does it, and when.
• Document close to the encounter. Details fade quickly, and late notes are harder to defend.
• Individualize every note. Copied text across visits or group members is a common documentation problem.
• Keep it readable. Use abbreviations your organization approves, and nothing more.

No, and the difference matters under HIPAA. SOAP, DAP, and BIRP notes are progress notes, which are part of the patient’s medical record.

The HIPAA Privacy Rule defines psychotherapy notes much more narrowly. According to HHS, they are notes recorded by a mental health professional that document or analyze the contents of a counseling conversation and are kept separate from the rest of the medical record.

HHS also lists what psychotherapy notes don’t include: medication prescription and monitoring, session start and stop times, the types and frequency of treatment, test results, and summaries of diagnosis, functional status, treatment plan, symptoms, prognosis, and progress. That information belongs in the medical record, which is exactly what progress notes contain.

The distinction affects how notes can be shared. With few exceptions, HHS states that disclosing psychotherapy notes requires the patient’s authorization, even for treatment by another provider. If you work in behavioral health, check your organization’s policy on what goes in each type of note.

For more on how patient information is protected when AI tools are involved, see our guide to AI scribes, PHI, and healthcare data security.

Whichever format you use, documentation takes time away from patients. A few practical ways to speed it up:

• Use a consistent template so you’re filling in sections, not deciding structure each time.
• Capture key details during or right after the encounter, while they’re fresh.
• Keep a short phrase bank for your common findings and interventions, and individualize every note.
• Consider an AI scribe that turns a conversation or your verbal summary into a structured draft you review and edit before signing.

If you’re curious how AI fits into structured note writing, read how AI can help write SOAP notes, or see how to use HosTalky’s AI Scribe step by step.