Prompt Safely: The AI Prompting Handbook for Therapists

What’s inside

A warm, practical handbook for therapists who want AI to take some of the paperwork off their evenings without putting a single client detail at risk. The rule is simple: the right amount of PHI in a prompt is zero.

• A 10-minute quick start, in the handbook and as a one-page card you can keep by your desk.
• Where the line is. A green, yellow, red guide, twelve quick calls, the 18 HIPAA Safe Harbor identifiers, and a no-PHI placeholder workflow.
• Plain-language compliance with citations: HIPAA, BAAs, California CMIA, AB 3030 and AB 489, and what the CAMFT, APA, and AAMFT codes say about AI.
• The Prompt Library: 54 prompts in 10 groups, from medical necessity, functional impairment, SOAP, DAP, and BIRP notes, prior auth and appeals, to treatment plans with measurable goals, interventions, frequency, and discharge criteria. Each one has a one-click button.
• A free AI tools directory of 25 tools with official links, what each is good for, and what the vendor’s own page says about privacy and BAAs, with the source linked.
• A private members page with the prompt library, a PHI-safe check (10 items), the Where’s the line? quiz (16 scenarios), an insurance-ready note self-check (13 points), and a treatment plan builder.
• Fillable worksheets: your practice AI use policy, a BAA and tool log, and a pre-prompt PHI scrub checklist.

• Page 3Quick start: do this in 10 minutes

• Page 5Where the line is: green, yellow, red

• Page 29Prompt Library 1: Start here, Medical necessity and impairment

• Page 31Prompt Library 3: Progress notes, Prior auth

• Page 36Free AI tools directory 1

• Page 39Your members toolkit and quizzes

Prompts ready to go, one click away

Pick a prompt, fill the blanks with general phrases like an age range or “weekly panic episodes,” and press the button. The prompt lands in the AI chat box, unsent, so you read it once more before anything leaves your screen.

Prompt library

Plan builder

Ten good places to start

• Session opener: set the rules first
• Scrub check before I paste
• Medical necessity summary
• Functional impairment statements
• Structure my note (SOAP, DAP, or BIRP)
• Note audit, gaps only
• Prior authorization request letter
• Appeal of a denial
• SMART objectives with baselines
• Discharge criteria

Quizzes that build the habit

• PHI-safe check. 10 practice snippets. Spot the identifiers using the 18 Safe Harbor categories.
• Where’s the line? 16 real-world situations. Green, yellow, or red, with the reasoning.
• Insurance-ready note. A 13-point self-check for a note you just wrote. Each gap links to the prompt that helps fix it.
• Treatment plan builder. Domains, interventions, frequency, measures, and discharge criteria, as placeholders you complete in your EHR.

Try the Where’s the line? quiz free →

Quiz

How it’s used

License

One clinician license. Licensed for one clinician, or one supervisor with their own supervisees. Please don’t resell, redistribute, or upload it to shared drives or marketplaces, and please don’t share the members page.