# Is Doctano a medical device, or medical advice?

> Doctano turns the lab reports you already have into one private, source-linked health timeline, with an AI that answers from your own results.

Neither. The distinction is not a legal footnote, because it decides what the product is willing to say.

This is the Markdown version of https://doctano.com/guides/is-doctano-medical-advice. The HTML page is the canonical version.

Doctano is a software and information service. It is not a clinic, healthcare provider, laboratory, or medical device, and it does not diagnose or treat. It organizes reports, compares each result with the range printed on that report, and explains what markers measure. Its labels, score, and AI answers can be wrong.

## What Doctano is

- **An organizer.** It reads a report and keeps the results in a timeline you can search.
- **A comparator.** It places each value against the reference range on the same report.
- **An explainer.** It describes what a marker measures and what its range means in general.
- **A reader for AI.** It can expose those organized results to DoctanoAI or a connected assistant, under your control.

## What Doctano is not

- Not a clinic, hospital, laboratory, or healthcare provider.
- Not a medical device, and not registered or marketed as one.
- Not a diagnostic tool, and not a second opinion.
- Not a prescriber. It does not recommend medicines, doses, or supplements.
- Not an emergency service. Nothing in it is monitored.
- Not a complete picture of your health. It reflects only the reports you uploaded.

## What each feature does and does not mean

| What you see | What it means | What it does not mean |
| --- | --- | --- |
| In range | The value sits inside the range printed on that report. | That the result is optimal for you, or that nothing is wrong. |
| Near limit | The value is close to a boundary, inside or just outside it. | That a condition is developing. |
| Out of range | The value sits outside the range printed on that report. | That you have a disease, or that the result is clinically significant. |
| No data | The report had no usable range, so no label could be applied. | That the result is normal, or unimportant. |
| Health score | A summary of the results Doctano has, weighted toward higher-impact markers. | A measure of health, fitness, or risk, or a comparison with other people. |
| Marker explanation | General information about what a test measures. | An interpretation of your specific value. |
| DoctanoAI answer | Information assembled from the selected profile's results. | Medical advice, a diagnosis, or a treatment plan. |

## Why the labels are still useful

A label that repeats the laboratory's own comparison is not a diagnosis, and it is not nothing. It answers a narrow, checkable question: is this value inside the range on the paper? That question is the first step in reading a report, and doing it consistently across years is what makes a trend visible.

The useful part is not the colour. It is that every label is attached to a value, the value is attached to a report, and the report can be reopened. A label you can audit is worth more than a judgement you cannot.

## What DoctanoAI will not do

DoctanoAI answers general questions in the context of the selected profile's results. It does not diagnose, prescribe medication, or recommend dosages. It can be wrong, and it cannot reliably answer from information that is not in the profile. When a question needs a clinician, the honest answer is to say so rather than to produce a confident one.

## When to stop using a tool and call someone

If a report flags a critical value, or if you have symptoms such as chest pain, severe breathlessness, fainting, confusion, or heavy bleeding, contact a doctor or local emergency services. Do not wait for an app, a score, or a chatbot. No disclaimer on this page is worth more than that instruction.

## Why this page exists

Health products drift toward stronger claims, because stronger claims sell better. This page is the brake: a plain statement of what the product does, written so that a reader, a clinician, or a regulator can hold the product to it. If a feature ever seems to contradict this page, the page is the intended behaviour and the feature is the bug.

## Doctano and medical advice

**Is Doctano a medical device?**

No. Doctano is a software and information service for organizing laboratory reports. It is not a medical device and is not registered or marketed as one.

**Does Doctano diagnose or treat anything?**

No. It organizes results, compares each value with the reference range printed on its own report, and explains what a marker measures. It does not diagnose a condition, recommend treatment, or prescribe.

**Does a label like near limit or out of range mean something is wrong?**

It means the value sits close to, or outside, the range the laboratory printed on that report. Whether that matters for you is a clinical question that depends on your history, symptoms, and other results.

**Can DoctanoAI answer medical questions?**

It answers general questions in the context of the selected profile's results. It does not diagnose, prescribe medication, or recommend dosages, and its answers can be incorrect or incomplete.

**Is Doctano suitable for an emergency?**

No. For anything urgent, contact a doctor or local emergency services. Doctano is not monitored, cannot respond to a crisis, and must not be used as a substitute for emergency care.

## What this is not

**Information, not care.** Doctano organizes and explains reports. For anything urgent, contact a doctor or local emergency services. Check important values against the original report.

## Links

- [Homepage](https://doctano.com/)
- [Lab report tracker](https://doctano.com/lab-report-tracker)
- [AI and your doctor](https://doctano.com/guides/ai-vs-doctor)
- [How the health score works](https://doctano.com/guides/health-score)
- [What a reference range means](https://doctano.com/guides/reference-ranges)
- [Terms and Conditions](https://doctano.com/legal/terms-and-conditions)
- [All guides](https://doctano.com/guides/)