How SOAP, DAP and BIRP notes differ, and when each one fits a vet visit

SOAP, DAP, and BIRP organize the same visit three different ways. They are not interchangeable.

SOAP stands for Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan. Dr. Lawrence Weed built it for human medicine in the 1960s, and veterinary medicine adopted it as the standard note for an exam visit: what the owner reports, what you measure, your read on it, what happens next.

DAP stands for Data, Assessment, Plan. It comes from counseling and behavioral health, where one Data section replaces SOAP's separate Subjective and Objective sections. That makes it faster to write. In our opinion it suits a short recheck or a progress note.

BIRP stands for Behavior, Intervention, Response, Plan. It also comes from behavioral health. It tracks the presenting behavior, what was done about it, how the patient responded, and the plan. In our view, that fits a behavior consult better than an exam note does.

None of the guides we checked point to a required format for any of these. Pick the format that fits the visit in front of you.

We built our scribe to draft in all three, so changing the format is a setting and needs no rewrite.

Which format does your practice default to for everything, even visits it does not quite fit?

We make Perch, a dictation tool for veterinary clinics. It drafts the note while the vet talks, and when it cannot match a drug name to a known term it leaves the line for the vet instead of guessing. You can try it without an account at perchscribe.com/demo.

Sources: SOAP and the problem oriented medical record (Lawrence Weed, 1960s); DAP and BIRP definitions from clinical documentation guides (ICANotes on DAP, SimplePractice on BIRP).