Frequently asked questions.

An AI medical scribe is software that generates a structured clinical note from a patient encounter, usually by listening to the visit ambiently through a microphone and returning a SOAP note within seconds. AI scribes are used to reduce the ~90 minutes per clinical hour that US clinicians spend on documentation.

Freed is our top overall pick for independent primary-care practices with 1–50 clinicians. Nabla Copilot is stronger for groups that need deep EHR write-back. Heidi Health has the best free tier. Sunoh.ai is the best option for clinics already on eClinicalWorks.

AI medical scribes can be HIPAA-compliant when the vendor signs a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with the clinic and implements the HIPAA Security Rule's administrative, physical, and technical safeguards. Every scribe in our top-10 ranking will sign a BAA. Compliance is a property of the relationship under a BAA, not a product feature.

Most AI scribes store audio recordings for a limited window (usually 24 hours to 30 days) for quality review, then delete. Retention defaults vary by vendor and are typically configurable per practice under the BAA. Ask the vendor for retention defaults in writing before signing.

A Business Associate Agreement (BAA) is a HIPAA-required contract between a healthcare provider (covered entity) and a vendor that handles Protected Health Information on the provider's behalf. Without a signed BAA, using an AI scribe with real patients is a HIPAA violation.

AI scribes for small clinics typically cost between $79 and $129 per clinician per month. Heidi Health offers a free tier for individual clinicians. Enterprise vendors (Abridge, DeepScribe, Augmedix Go) start higher and require annual commitments. Sunoh.ai uses per-encounter pricing at roughly $1.25 per visit.

Freed offers a 7-day free trial. Nabla and Tali offer 14-day free trials. Heidi has a genuinely free tier. Enterprise-sold scribes (Abridge, DeepScribe, Augmedix Go) run pilot programs but not self-serve trials.

Native integrations are strongest for Epic (Abridge, Suki, Nabla, Augmedix Go), Athena (Nabla, DeepScribe, Freed), and eClinicalWorks (Sunoh.ai is native; others via copy-paste). For DrChrono, Elation, Practice Fusion, Kareo/Tebra, and SimplePractice, most scribes rely on browser extensions or copy-paste.

No. SMART on FHIR is one of four integration modes (native, SMART on FHIR, browser extension, copy-paste). Small-clinic AI scribes work fine with copy-paste — it costs about two seconds per note and is universally compatible.

For self-serve scribes like Twofold Health, Freed, Heidi, and Tali, an individual clinician can be running real visits within an hour — Twofold and Freed both cleared the 20-minute mark in our onboarding tests. A full multi-clinician small-clinic rollout takes about two weeks including BAA, pilot, template tuning, and training. See our implementation checklist for a day-by-day plan.

Yes. All top-tier scribes support telehealth capture through browser or mobile microphone. Consent handling is the same as in-person visits: the clinician informs the patient the visit is being AI-scribed before starting.

Yes, with caveats. Twofold Health, Freed, Nabla, and Abridge score well on general primary care, women's health, psychiatry, and common specialties. DeepScribe has the strongest surgical-subspecialty templates, and Playback Health leads on patient-facing recap output for surgical practices. For heavily specialty-specific workflows (psychiatry MSE, dermatology lesion mapping, orthopedic exam structures), test the specific scribe against 5–10 real visits before committing.