When you stop seeing a patient, archive their record. Archiving keeps everything intact — notes, transcripts, history — but moves the patient out of your active list.
Steps
Open the patient from the sidebar
Click Archive in the action row at the top of the patient detail page
A confirmation appears
Click Yes, archive
The patient disappears from your default sidebar view but is preserved in full.
What changes after archiving
The patient is hidden from the default patient list (the sidebar)
The Start New Session button is removed from their detail page — you can't record new sessions on an archived patient
All historical sessions, notes, transcripts, and the case overview remain intact and readable
Finalized notes stay finalized
Existing audio recordings stay where they are
Viewing archived patients
When you have at least one archived patient, a small Show archived link appears at the bottom of the sidebar's patient list. Click it to reveal archived patients (they show with a muted, struck-through name so they're easy to tell apart). Click Hide archived to collapse them again.
Unarchiving
Open the archived patient from the (visible) archived list. The action row at the top shows an Unarchive button in place of Archive — click it. The patient returns to the active list immediately and you can record new sessions again right away.
Why not just delete?
Confidant deliberately doesn't have a "delete patient" button. Therapy records have legal retention requirements that vary by state and license type — typically 5–10 years after termination. Deleting a patient would lose that record permanently and isn't reversible.
If you need a patient fully removed (legally permitted, formal request), contact support. We can walk you through a proper deletion that respects retention requirements.
What happens if I archive by mistake
Just unarchive. There's no time limit, no penalty, no data loss.