Penguin Health vs. CR NoteGuardAI

Comparison

Both audit every session note. Only one runs your QA program.

CR NoteGuardAI is the note-audit add-on inside CentralReach. Penguin Health is an independent compliance layer that reads your notes from any system, runs rules your team writes, and carries each finding through to a documented fix. Here is how they compare, line by line.

Book a Demo Jump to the table

Rules your team writes

Plain-English or deterministic rules, edited in the app and re-run on demand. No request form, no vendor backlog.

Every finding comes with the fix

Program-specific coaching text, action steps, and the escalation email already filled in.

Compliance beyond the note

Supervision and authorization reporting alongside note findings, from data your organization supplies.

Side by side

Fourteen things to check before you choose

NoteGuardAI details come from CentralReach's published documentation as of September 2026. Penguin details describe the product as shipped today.

Capability	Penguin HealthIndependent compliance layer	CR NoteGuardAICentralReach add-on
Works withWhere your notes live	Included CentralReach, read-only, with no change to your notes.	Limited CentralReach only. Rules require specific drop-in fields in your CentralReach note templates.
Who writes the rules	Included Your QA team, in the app. Deterministic conditions on dates, times, durations, text, and numbers, or plain-English rules the AI evaluates. Thresholds are yours.	Limited CentralReach. Ten default rules per template. Additional catalog rules are enabled by CentralReach Support. New rules go through a request form and are "added to our product backlog."
Changing a rule	Included Edit it and re-run it now, against today's notes or last quarter's.	Limited Takes effect on the next nightly run and is not retroactive. Audit data is unavailable for any period a rule was turned off.
Name and signature checks	Included Same-person matching that tolerates credentials, titles, initials, and hyphens, for the rendering provider (display, billed, signature) and the supervisor co-signature. A missing co-signature still fails.	Limited Provider Signature Match compares the provider name field to the signature field. A supervisor co-signature check is not among the documented default rules.
Duplicate narratives	Included Exact duplicates across every provider, client, and service code in the organization, on a seven-day rolling window.	Limited Exact copy of the same provider's previous 30 narratives.
Narrative quality	Included The sentence requirement scales with billed time. A near-miss passes if it meets a session-type rubric, and the reviewer sees a one-sentence rationale. Also checks third person and that tracked data appears in the note.	Limited Narrative present; catalog rules such as Note Length and Goals Per Hour; the mobile pre-check flags "fewer than three sentences." Content rules such as Narrative Clarity are listed by name.
What the reviewer gets	Included The finding plus QA guidance for that program code: an educational email, numbered action steps, and an escalation email pre-filled with the date of service and staff name.	Limited The issue list beside the note PDF, with Create task, Resolve, Unresolve, and Ignore.
Review workflow	Included Confirm the finding, assign it to staff, mark it resolved, confirm the document. Marking a finding incorrect records a false positive or a missed issue.	Limited Unresolved, Resolved, or Ignored. Tasks are assigned in CentralReach and the note is re-audited on later nightly runs.
Audit trail	Included Every reviewer action is written to an immutable, write-once log with seven-year retention.	Limited Resolution status per entry and a rule-change activity history in the admin hub.
Before the note is submitted	Not included Penguin reviews converted notes.	Included CR Mobile can require RBTs to run a subset of rules before a note is created.
Supervision compliance	Included Supervision hours as a share of direct hours per BCBA, checked against the payer and state requirement you configure, from supervision data your organization supplies.	Not included Not part of NoteGuardAI.
Authorizations	Included Clients missing a monthly 97155, and authorization utilization reporting when your organization supplies authorization data.	Not included Claims auditing is a separate CentralReach product (CR ClaimCheckAI).
Analytics	Included Staff performance and revenue-at-risk reports, plus plain-English questions that return a chart you can save.	Included A CR Insights dashboard (charges at risk, average score, pass and fail by rule, provider, and location) and a data cube.
Run schedule	Included Scheduled daily per organization, plus on-demand runs.	Included Nightly at 12:00 am UTC.

IncludedDocumented and available LimitedAvailable with a narrower scope or a dependency Not includedNot part of the product

In practice

Three moments where the difference shows

The same note, the same finding, and what each product puts in front of your reviewer.

1. A supervisor signs with her credentials

The supervisor field reads "Dana Rivera." The electronic signature reads "Dana Rivera, M.A., BCBA, LBA." Same person, same session.

CR NoteGuardAIfinding as shown to a reviewer, name changed

Severity	Audit rule	Issue(s)
Critical	Supervisor Name and Signature Match	The supervisor field 'Dana Rivera' does NOT match the signature field 'Dana Rivera, M.A., BCBA, LBA'.

Create taskResolveIgnore

The two values differ only by the credentials after the name.
Rated Critical, the same weight as a missing narrative. It repeats for every session that supervisor signs until someone ignores it.

Penguin Healththe same note

Supervisor name matches supervisor signaturePASS

supervisor_name: Dana Rivera
signature_names: ["Dana Rivera, M.A., BCBA, LBA"]
same_person: true
notes: Signature adds credentials (M.A., BCBA, LBA); same person.

From the rule: "titles, credentials, middle initials, hyphenation, or name ordering should be considered matches … false mismatches create noise for reviewers."

Still fails what matters: a supervisor named with no co-signature, or a different person signing.
Passes cleanly when neither field is present, such as a BCBA-delivered session with no supervision required.

2. A payer changes a documentation requirement

Your QA lead needs a new rule: parent-training notes must name the caregiver present and the skill taught.

CR NoteGuardAIAI Admin Hub, "Request New Rule"

Request New Rule

New rule requests are evaluated by our team and, if accepted, added to our product backlog. Development is prioritized based on impact and demand.

Goal of the rule (required)What question is this rule answering?

Pass examples (required)Provide links to 2 to 3 notes that would pass.

Fail examples (required)Provide links to 2 to 3 notes that would fail.

Submit request

Wording from CentralReach's documentation of the form. Adding a template, enabling a catalog rule, or re-enabling a disabled rule also goes through CentralReach Support.

Penguin HealthRule editor

Parent training names caregiver and skillNEW RULE

applies_when: procedure code contains 97156
rule_text: Pass when the narrative names the caregiver present and the skill or strategy taught. Fail when either is missing.
fields_to_extract: caregiver_named, skill_named, rationale

Saved by your QA lead. Runs in tonight's validation, or right now against the last 30 days of parent-training notes.

Nearly forty deterministic operators for the rules that don't need judgment, and plain English for the ones that do.
Exceptions are conditions, not templates: the narrative-length rule skips 97151 assessments on its own.

3. A note is converted eight days after the session

Both products catch it. What happens in the next hour is different.

CR NoteGuardAIfinding as shown to a reviewer

Severity	Audit rule	Issue(s)
Critical	Timely Conversion	Timesheet was NOT converted within 2 day(s). Session Note DOS: 04/27/2026, Timesheet Creation: 05/05/2026, Days difference: 8

Create taskResolveIgnoreView note

The reviewer creates a CentralReach task for the provider. The note is re-audited on a later nightly run.
No coaching text, no email, and no difference between an RBT's late direct-service note and a BCBA's late supervision note.

Penguin Healththe same note, with QA guidance for 97153

Session note converted within 8 daysFAIL

visit_date: 04/27/2026
note_created_at: 05/05/2026
queue: Needs Action

QA action steps

Notify the BCBA and RBT.
Determine the reason for the delayed conversion.
Document the reason.
Complete an administrative amendment if appropriate.
Document completion of the QA review.

Subject: QA Review: Delayed Note Conversion, 04/27/2026 Hi, During a Quality Assurance review, we identified that the session note for 04/27/2026 (RBT: Jordan Lee) was converted more than eight calendar days after the date of service. … If no response is received within 24 hours, the issue will be escalated to the Clinical Director.

Names, dates, and the document link fill in automatically. The 97155 and 97156 version addresses the BCBA directly, because the BCBA wrote the note.

Confirm the finding, assign it, mark it resolved, confirm the document. Each step is logged with who and when.

Fair is fair

What NoteGuardAI does well

It's already in CentralReach.

No integration to set up, and results appear in the Billing module next to the entries they describe.

It can check before submission.

CR Mobile can require RBTs to run a subset of rules and resolve or explain each issue before the note is created.

It scores.

Four severity tiers and a 0 to 100 score per note give teams a single number to track, if that is how they manage.

If a nightly list inside CentralReach is what your team needs, NoteGuardAI is a reasonable place to start. Penguin is for QA programs that have outgrown the list.

Next step

See Penguin run on your own session notes

Bring a week of notes. We'll run your rules, including the ones NoteGuardAI told you to request, and walk through every finding with your QA lead.

Book a Demo See Penguin for ABA

CentralReach, CR NoteGuardAI, CR ClaimCheckAI, CR Mobile, and CR Insights are trademarks of CentralReach, LLC. Penguin Health is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by CentralReach. NoteGuardAI descriptions are drawn from CentralReach's public product page and help-center documentation as of September 2026 and from NoteGuardAI output observed in September 2026; names in examples are fictional. Products change; if you believe something here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.

CR NoteGuardAI product page
Knowledge: NoteGuardAI Rules (default rules, duplicate scope, nightly schedule, template field dependency)
AI Admin Hub: Overview of the NoteGuardAI Management Tool and Admin Actions (self-service vs. Support, Request New Rule, not retroactive)
How to: Calculate NoteGuardAI Scores (severity points and score formula)
How To: Audit Note Results from CR NoteGuardAI (reviewer actions, re-audit)
CR Mobile 26.8 release notes (pre-submission check)
Knowledge: the CR NoteGuardAI dashboard
25.01 release notes (CR ClaimCheckAI as a separate product)