1. What Is Telehealth?
Telehealth is healthcare delivered when you and your clinician are in different locations, using secure messages, audio, video, or other electronic communications. Ayah Health services may include clinical evaluation, wellness follow-up, laboratory orders, and prescription routing when appropriate. We use the Ayah Health patient portal and, where applicable, PushHealth and other service providers. Not every concern can be evaluated safely without an in-person examination.
2. AI-Assisted Intake & Documentation
Ayah Health uses artificial intelligence (AI) to assist with healthcare services. You may interact with an AI-guided intake or wellness check-in, not a person. AI can organize your answers, ask relevant follow-up questions, and help prepare clinical notes and patient-facing wellness plans. For follow-up care, it may consider your earlier assessments, goals, clinical notes, and plans to help the clinician understand what has changed.
The technology does not diagnose, prescribe, place orders, authorize treatment, or independently make clinical decisions. Dr. Ahsan Akram independently reviews the patient's information and is solely responsible for the diagnosis, clinical interpretation, treatment plan, prescribing decisions, and management of the case. AI-generated material is a drafting aid for the physician's convenience and is not a substitute for the physician's professional judgment.
The intake may switch automatically to a structured, non-AI question flow if the AI service is unavailable or slow. This does not change who makes clinical decisions or the standard applied to your care. Information you submit through either flow becomes part of your medical record and is protected as described in Section 6. If you prefer not to use AI-assisted intake, contact us so an alternative can be arranged.
When voice input is offered, a recording is transmitted securely for speech-to-text processing before the resulting transcript is used as your answer. The transcript, not the microphone recording itself, is intended to become part of the intake record. You may always type instead.
AI can misunderstand speech, miss context, or generate inaccurate information. Review your answers and tell the care team about errors. An automated reply, completed check-in, or generated draft is not confirmation that a clinician has reviewed it. Only a clinician-reviewed and approved plan is your care plan. The chat and portal are not continuously monitored and must not be used for emergencies or time-sensitive medical needs.
2A. Wellness Care
The Ayah Health Wellness Program is physician-led lifestyle and preventive-health support for adults 18 and older who are physically in Texas or Florida during care. Your initial assessment covers your health history, habits, and goals. After review, the care team assigns a wellness track. Monthly check-ins cover shared wellness questions and questions relevant to your track; the clinician considers these updates and your prior care to develop or revise your plan.
Participation does not guarantee weight loss, improved scores, disease prevention, a prescription, or any other result. Self-reported scores, trends, and screening questionnaires are tools for discussion, not diagnoses or continuous medical monitoring. Tell us if a measurement is estimated or unavailable. Do not change prescribed treatment on the basis of an automated response or graph.
Wellness care does not replace your primary care clinician, necessary examinations, emergency care, or specialty treatment. This program does not provide prenatal or obstetric care or treatment for depression or anxiety disorders. Discuss significant diet, exercise, or supplement changes with your clinician, especially if you have a medical condition, take medicines, or may be pregnant. The clinician may recommend another service or decline a recommendation when it is not appropriate for you.
You may ask questions, decline a recommendation, or stop participating. Withholding information may limit what can be recommended safely. Stopping a chat or withdrawing consent does not itself cancel recurring billing; use the cancellation process in the Wellness Membership Terms. Payment authorization is separate from this care consent.
2B. Optional AI Scribe Recording
Ayah Health offers an optional AI scribe for clinic and telehealth encounters. It uses a microphone to capture the conversation, transcribe speech, and prepare or update a draft clinical note. Audio and relevant clinical information are processed through our contracted Google Cloud AI services. This is a documentation aid, not an independent clinician; the treating clinician is responsible for reviewing and correcting the note before approving it.
- Recording is optional and requires separate permission for the encounter. Staff must explain its purpose and obtain agreement from the patient or authorized representative and every other participant before recording begins. New participants must agree before their conversation is recorded. Reading this page, accepting general care consent, or permitting microphone access does not by itself supply that permission.
- You may decline recording or ask staff to stop at any time without losing access to care. The clinician can document the encounter without the scribe. Tell staff before discussing something you do not want recorded; stopping cannot undo processing that has already occurred.
- Audio may contain sensitive health details and other participants' voices. Transcription can omit words, confuse speakers, or misstate information. Let the clinician know if the resulting record is inaccurate, and request an amendment through our privacy contact.
- The scribe processes audio in temporary segments and does not keep an audio recording in the patient chart or a recording library. The transcript is temporary working material used to update the clinical note and is deleted from the scribe system after that update. The resulting note, its clinical revision history, and required consent and audit records remain; they are not an archive of the underlying transcript.
Stopping recording does not erase information already incorporated into your clinical note. Permission to record for documentation is not permission to publish your voice, use it in advertising, or use identifiable recordings to train a general-purpose AI model. Any different use must have its own lawful basis and any required authorization. See the privacy notice for data handling and your rights.
3. Benefits & Expected Outcomes
- Improved and convenient access to medical evaluation without traveling to a clinic.
- Efficient review of non-emergent medical concerns and prescription refills.
- Direct access to board-certified physician evaluation and lab testing requisitions.
As with any medical evaluation, telehealth care through Ayah Health does not guarantee a specific diagnosis, treatment outcome, or cure. Medicine involves inherent uncertainty, and Dr. Akram's clinical judgment governs every recommendation.
4. Potential Risks & Limitations
While virtual care offers high accessibility, there are inherent limitations compared to an in-person physical examination:
- Delays in medical evaluation or treatment could occur because of internet interruption, platform outage, transcription error, software failure, or other technology/equipment limitations. If the intake appears stuck, you should retry, refresh and resume, or contact Ayah Health rather than assuming it was received.
- In rare instances, security protocols could fail, causing a breach of privacy of personal medical information, despite reasonable administrative, physical, and technical safeguards.
- Lack of access to a complete physical examination or hands-on diagnostic testing may require you to seek in-person medical care elsewhere.
- Information conveyed by you (symptoms, history, images) may be incomplete or insufficient for a fully informed diagnosis, which could affect the accuracy of evaluation and treatment.
- As with any medical care, there is a possibility of adverse reactions to prescribed medications, misdiagnosis, or a delay in diagnosis.
5. Patient Acknowledgments
By requesting care through Ayah Health and its secure patient platform, you attest and acknowledge that:
- You are physically located in the State of Texas or the State of Florida at the time of your consultation, and you are solely responsible for accurately disclosing your location.
- You have provided accurate, truthful, and complete medical history, allergy details, and current medication lists, and you understand that incomplete or inaccurate information may affect the safety and accuracy of your care.
- You understand the AI assistance described in Section 2, including its limitations, and that Dr. Ahsan Akram is responsible for clinical review and every diagnostic, treatment, and prescribing decision.
- You understand that a chat intake is not complete until the interface confirms that it has been saved. An unfinished intake may be kept temporarily so you can resume it, and is automatically made unavailable after the applicable temporary-session period.
- You understand that Dr. Ahsan Akram does NOT evaluate or prescribe DEA Controlled Substances (narcotics, stimulants, benzodiazepines, or sedatives) under any circumstances.
- You understand that if your condition is determined to be unsafe for virtual care, or outside the scope of telehealth, you will be advised to seek in-person, urgent, or emergency medical evaluation, and that Dr. Akram may decline to treat you for this reason at his sole clinical discretion.
- You understand you have the right to withhold or withdraw consent to telehealth care at any time without affecting your right to future care or treatment.
- For wellness care, you are at least 18. For other eligible telehealth services, you are at least 18 or are the authorized parent or legal guardian of a patient age 2 through 17, subject to any rights the minor has under applicable law. Ayah Health does not provide telehealth services to children under 2.
6. Confidentiality, Records & Third-Party Platforms
Submitted assessments, check-ins, messages, clinical notes, approved wellness plans, and orders may become part of your medical record. We retain records under applicable federal and state requirements and any legal holds; ending care does not automatically erase them. See our Notice of Privacy Practices for permitted uses, access, correction, and complaint rights.
We use the Ayah Health portal and, where applicable, PushHealth for patient services. Laboratories such as Quest Diagnostics and pharmacies may receive relevant information for treatment. Technology providers supporting our services receive information for permitted purposes under applicable agreements. These arrangements do not waive your privacy rights or replace any separate authorization the law requires.
Our AI-assisted workflows use Google Cloud services under a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement for applicable processing. Relevant history, answers, transcripts, and prior notes or plans may be processed to support your care. A business associate agreement does not eliminate technology or privacy risks. Use the secure portal for health information; ordinary email is not an emergency channel and may be less secure.
7. Financial Responsibility
Ayah Health operates on a direct-pay basis and does not bill health insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid. You are responsible for fees disclosed and agreed to before the applicable service. For wellness, the initial payment and recurring membership follow the separate Wellness Membership Terms; they are not contingent on approval of each later monthly plan. For other telehealth services, the fee and payment timing are disclosed before you accept the service. Itemized receipts may support a reimbursement request, but insurer reimbursement or HSA/FSA eligibility is not guaranteed.
8. Assumption of Risk
By proceeding with a telehealth consultation, you voluntarily assume the risks described in this consent, including the inherent limitations of virtual evaluation described in Section 4. You confirm that you have been given the opportunity to ask questions about telehealth as a method of care delivery, that those questions (if any) have been answered to your satisfaction, and that you are choosing telehealth as a voluntary alternative to in-person care, having been informed of that alternative. Nothing in this consent limits any right or remedy available to you under applicable law, including in connection with professional negligence.
9. Duration & Revocation of Consent
Your general care consent applies to the services you request until you revoke it or an updated consent is required. Tell the care team verbally or in writing if you wish to withdraw. Withdrawal does not undo care or lawful processing already completed, and telehealth cannot continue without the consent it requires. Optional recording permission is encounter-specific and may be withdrawn immediately by asking staff to stop. Cancelling a paid wellness membership is a separate step, described in the membership terms.