A recent Clark County Superior Court decision is giving dental and medical compliance teams one of the first legal guideposts on how ambient AI recordings are treated under state records laws. In Raphael v. Mantei, the court ruled that patients do not have a legal right to access ambient AI audio captured during a visit, siding with The Vancouver Clinic and clarifying how Washington’s Uniform Health Care Information Act applies to AI scribe technology.
The case involved a patient request for the raw DAX ambient AI recording from a telehealth visit. DAX ambient AI is a medical ambient AI documentation tool. The patient argued the recording should be part of her designated medical record. Under the HIPAA Privacy Rule, patients have a right to access their designated record set, which includes medical and billing records used to make decisions about the individual.
The clinic countered that the audio served only as a drafting aid, similar to dictation or handwritten notes, because clinicians edit the AI‑generated draft before finalizing the chart. The judge agreed, stating that the DAX recording is exempt from disclosure under state law. In other words, the designated record set excludes draft materials—such as working notes, dictation, and other documentation aids—that are not used to make decisions about the patient.
National medical organizations including the AMA Litigation Center, the Washington State Medical Association, and the Washington State Hospital Association supported this position, emphasizing that ambient AI should be treated like traditional note‑generation tools.
For dental professionals, this ruling offers early insight into how courts may classify AI‑assisted documentation as adoption accelerates across dental settings.