For digitizing the paper records pile
A medical document scanner that actually reads what it scans
Most apps that call themselves a medical document scanner give you a tidier PDF. That's the easy half. The hard half — and the half that actually saves you time later — is reading the page: which document is this, what date is on it, what lab values are listed, what medication changed, what did the visit summary recommend. KeptWell does both halves.
What a medical document scanner actually needs to do
When most people search for a medical document scanner, they have a specific moment in mind: a kitchen counter, a pile of paper from the hospital, and the question "how do I keep all of this somewhere I can find it again." The phone-camera-with-OCR apps (CamScanner, Adobe Scan, Apple Notes' scanner) handle digitizing — they turn paper into a searchable PDF and that's it. You're left with a folder of PDFs nobody has read. A medical document scanner worth using also reads the contents: it knows a pathology report from a lab result from a discharge summary, pulls out the dates and values, and files everything by what's actually in it.
Why scanning is only half the job
Three things every family figures out the hard way after they finish scanning the pile.
OCR text is searchable but still dead
OCR converts the picture of a page into characters you can search. That's useful for finding the file. It doesn't help you answer "what was her last A1C and how has it trended" — to do that, somebody still has to open every lab PDF and read it. KeptWell extracts the values themselves, charts the trend, and surfaces what changed since last time, without you opening any of the files.
PDFs in a folder still scatter everywhere
Even with a great scan, the resulting PDFs end up in iCloud Drive for one parent, in Gmail attachments for another, on the third person's phone, and in the family group chat. KeptWell pulls everything into one care circle that the whole family sees the same way.
Bad scans don't have to be unreadable
Faxed records, photocopied photocopies, handwritten margin notes — most scanner apps give up. KeptWell runs Claude Vision on every page, which handles much rougher quality than character-based OCR, and it flags low-confidence extractions so you know which fields to double-check. Re-scanning the same fax in better light usually won't help; reading the rough scan more carefully does.
How KeptWell scans and reads at the same time
Drag in any image or PDF. Within minutes, the document arrives sorted, summarized, and structured.
Scan or upload, any format
Snap a photo of paper, drag in a PDF from the patient portal, forward an email attachment, or import a multi-page scan from your phone. KeptWell extracts the document type, the dates on the page, the key findings, and any structured fields — labs, medications, vitals — without you doing anything beyond the upload.
Pathology — Mar 14.pdf
2.4 MB · uploaded Mar 14
- TypePathology report
- FindingsStage IIA, ER+/PR+, HER2-
- NextMed onc consult, 2 wks
Medication changes surface as their own events
Every scanned discharge summary, every after-visit summary, every refill list goes through medication extraction. When the dosage on a long-running prescription changes, that change shows up on its own — dose ↑, dose ↓, started, stopped — so you don't have to compare two PDFs to spot it.
Medication changes
Last 60 days
- Dose ↑
Lisinopril
10 → 20 mg · Mar 18
- Started
Atorvastatin
20 mg nightly · Mar 18
- Stopped
Spironolactone
— · Feb 02
Ask the binder about anything you scanned
Once a document is in, the chat has read it. "What did the cardiologist recommend about the lisinopril at the last visit?" gets a real answer with a citation back to the page. The scan becomes useful information, not just a PDF you can technically find later.
When did Mom's platelets start dropping?
First dipped Feb 14 at 118. Trended down through Mar 13 (91, flagged low).
Ask a follow-up…
Other ways families use KeptWell
For medical binder
Once you've scanned the pile, the binder is what holds it. See how the scanned documents organize into one digital medical binder the whole family sees.
For medical record organizer
If the question after scanning is who-keeps-this-sorted, the organizer view auto-sorts by document type and date — no manual filing.
What we will never do with your records
These promises apply to every KeptWell account, regardless of plan or price.
- We won't sell your data.
- Not to advertisers, not to data brokers, not to insurers, not to pharma, not to anyone, in any form, ever.
- We won't show you ads.
- Not in the app, not in emails, not anywhere.
- We won't train AI models on your records.
- Anthropic (whose Claude model powers KeptWell) is contractually prohibited from training on anything we send them, under a signed Business Associate Agreement.
Common questions about scanning medical documents
- Does it work on handwritten notes?
- Clear handwriting reads well. Doctor signatures, prescription labels, appointment reminders, after-visit notes scribbled in margins — KeptWell's pipeline handles most of it. Messier handwriting gets a low-confidence flag on the extracted fields so you know to verify a value before relying on it. We'd rather be honest about what we couldn't read than confidently extract the wrong number.
- What file types does the medical document scanner support?
- PDFs, images (JPEG, PNG, HEIC), Word documents, RTF, plain text, and audio recordings (M4A, MP3, WAV, WebM, AAC) for visit notes and voicemails. Legacy formats like .doc and .xls are not supported because no pure-Ruby parser exists for them — convert to .docx or .xlsx first.
- Is this OCR, or is it AI?
- It's AI, not character-level OCR. KeptWell uses Claude Vision to read the page in context — the same way a person glancing at the form knows that the number next to 'A1C' is the A1C value. That handles rougher scans, faxed pages, and handwritten notes better than traditional OCR, and it extracts meaning (this is a discharge summary, dated this day, with these key findings) rather than just text.
- What happens to the original scanned file?
- The original always stays. Nothing replaces it; the extracted summary and structured fields live alongside the source PDF or image, with citations linking back. You can re-download the original anytime.
- Can I scan audio of a doctor visit instead of a document?
- Yes — KeptWell transcribes audio recordings and treats the transcript like any other document: titled, summarized, key findings flagged. Recording a visit is a common use case, especially when the news is heavy and nobody can take notes in the moment. Check the laws in your state for one-party vs two-party consent before recording.
- Does it work on Spanish-language records?
- The underlying model handles most major languages on input. The summaries and chat answers come back in English by default. If you need bilingual output, ask in the chat — the model can answer back in Spanish when prompted. Records in other languages are flagged on upload so you know what's happening.
Scan one document. See it come back understood.
Drag in any medical PDF or photo of a paper record. KeptWell reads it within minutes and shows you what's inside. Free today.
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