Legal
Healthcare Compliance
How Daobook supports Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners in Australia to meet their professional and regulatory obligations.
Daobook is built for registered Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioners in Australia. Compliance with AHPRA registration standards, the Chinese Medicine Board of Australia's codes and guidelines, and applicable health records legislation always rests with the practitioner — Daobook provides tools that make meeting those obligations easier in everyday practice.
AHPRA and the Chinese Medicine Board of Australia
Chinese medicine is a regulated profession under the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme, administered by AHPRA and the Chinese Medicine Board of Australia (CMBA). Daobook does not verify practitioner registration on your behalf — current registration status is publicly available on the AHPRA register — but Daobook does help you meet your professional obligations by:
- Storing your AHPRA registration number against your practitioner profile
- Optionally displaying your AHPRA number on patient-facing documents — invoices, prescriptions, and herb labels — when you enable it in your clinic settings
- Recording each practitioner's name and registration number alongside the consultations and prescriptions they author
Clinical records
The CMBA's Code of conduct and the Guidelines for records, recordkeeping and patient consent set out what TCM practitioners must record and retain. Daobook supports compliant recordkeeping by providing:
- Customisable consultation templates (initial, return, follow-up) with practitioner-defined fields, so the structure of your notes matches how you actually practice
- Centralised, role-restricted access to client records, with each practitioner only able to see records they have permission to view
- A version history on consultations, prescriptions, invoices, appointments, and clients via PaperTrail, so changes to records are auditable over time
- A separate audit log for edits made to invoices after they have been paid
- Long-term storage of records — Australian health records legislation typically requires retention for at least seven years from the last entry (or until age 25 for minors), and Daobook retains records for the life of the active subscription
Informed consent
Daobook's intake forms feature lets you build and send consent forms to clients. The TCM Comprehensive Intake template (included by default) covers treatment consent for acupuncture, cupping, gua sha, moxibustion, and herbal medicine, along with disclosure of common risks and side effects. Forms are completed and stored against the client record.
Prescribing and dispensing Chinese herbal medicine
Most Chinese herbs dispensed directly by a registered practitioner to their own patient fall under the practitioner-dispensing arrangements of the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 and are not individually listed on the ARTG. Practitioners remain responsible for prescribing within the scope of the Chinese Medicine Board's Guidelines for safe practice and for being aware of any herbs scheduled under the Poisons Standard.
Daobook supports safe prescribing and dispensing by providing:
- A structured prescription builder that records the formula, every herb and quantity, dosage, administration instructions, and the prescribing practitioner
- Printable patient-facing herb labels and prescription PDFs that include dosage, administration instructions, warnings, the prescribing practitioner's details, and a notice asking patients to report adverse reactions
- Ingredient-level records for raw herbs, granules, and pills, so what was dispensed can be traced back from the prescription
Daobook does not provide a clinical decision-support system, a herb–drug interaction database, or a structured adverse-event reporting workflow. Practitioners are responsible for using their own clinical judgement, and any adverse events should be reported through the appropriate regulatory channels (TGA and, where required, the CMBA).
Continuing professional development (CPD)
Registered TCM practitioners must complete a minimum number of CPD hours each registration period across the categories defined by the CMBA. Daobook's CPD module helps you stay on top of this by:
- Recording activities by category (interactive learning, professional issues) and tallying hours toward the Board's minimums
- Tracking learning goals across a CPD period
- Storing certificates and other evidence as attachments against each activity
- Generating a printable CPD report for your records, for AHPRA audit, or to submit at registration renewal
Privacy and data protection
Patient records held in Daobook are personal and sensitive information under the Privacy Act 1988. Our handling of that information is described in detail in our Privacy Policy, Data Security, and Australian Privacy Principles statements.
Limitations
Daobook is a practice-management tool, not a regulator or a legal adviser. Information on this page describes what the software does — it does not constitute legal, regulatory, or professional advice. For authoritative requirements, refer to AHPRA, the Chinese Medicine Board of Australia, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, and the health records legislation in your state or territory.
Contact us
If you have questions about how a specific Daobook feature relates to your compliance obligations, get in touch at admin@daobook.com.au.