Best AI Medical Scribes: An Independent Comparison
Last updated
Free tool
Put your own numbers in and see the range, not one flattering figure.
Need it signed off?
Thirty free minutes with an analyst on the vendor, the workflow and the rule you are unsure about.
Book an evaluation callHow we evaluated
This comparison is built from vendor documentation, published pricing pages and public product material, checked on the date shown at the top of the page. We take no commissions, referral fees or paid placements from any vendor listed, which is why some cells say we could not verify something rather than carrying a number.
What we did not do matters as much. We have not run a controlled head to head trial of note quality, and we do not publish accuracy percentages, because a figure produced in one specialty with one microphone does not transfer to yours. Anyone quoting a single accuracy number across this category is quoting a marketing asset.
Where a vendor does not publish pricing, we say pricing on request rather than estimating. Where a vendor publishes a price, we cite it as a starting point and tell you to check the current page, because these change. The underlying facts live in one place and feed every page, so a correction here also corrects the use case page and the Epic integration page.
If you spot something out of date, that is worth telling us. We would rather fix it than have it quietly age.
At a glance
Every cell is checkable against the vendor material published on the review date above.
| Vendor | Best suited to | Pricing | Published EHR integrations | BAA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abridge | Health systems on Epic | On request | Epic | Yes |
| Microsoft Dragon Copilot | Existing Microsoft or Dragon sites | On request | Epic, Oracle Health, MEDITECH, athenahealth | Yes |
| Ambience Healthcare | Specialty depth and coding | On request | Epic | Yes |
| Suki | Ambient notes plus dictation | On request | Epic, Oracle Health, athenahealth, MEDITECH | Yes |
| DeepScribe | Oncology practices | On request | Epic | Yes |
| Freed | Solo and small practices | Core 79 US dollars per clinician per month, Premier 119, capped Starter 39 | None published | Yes |
| Heidi Health | Individual evaluation | Free tier plus paid plans | None published | Yes |
The vendors
One card each: where the product is the right answer, what it costs, and what it costs you to run.
The default shortlist entry for a health system already committed to Epic, where depth inside the chart matters more than speed of purchase.
Pricing
Pricing on request, negotiated per health system.
HIPAA posture
BAA available
Publicly markets to health systems and signs business associate agreements. Confirm retention of raw audio and any model training terms in your own contract.
Published EHR integrations
- epic
Strengths
- Strong presence inside Epic workflows
- Output designed to be structured and codeable rather than narrative only
- Built for enterprise security review, which shortens that stage
Trade-offs
- Enterprise sales cycle, so not a next week purchase
- No published pricing to plan against
- Overweight for a small independent practice
Worth shortlisting wherever Dragon dictation is already in the building and a Microsoft agreement exists to attach to.
Pricing
Pricing on request through Microsoft or a reseller. Often bundled with an existing agreement.
HIPAA posture
BAA available
Microsoft signs business associate agreements for its healthcare services. Check which specific service and configuration your agreement covers.
Published EHR integrations
- epic
- oracle-health
- meditech
- athenahealth
Strengths
- The broadest set of published EHR integrations in this group
- Commercial path is simple where a Microsoft relationship already exists
- Sits alongside an existing dictation estate rather than replacing it
Trade-offs
- Product naming has changed more than once, so older reviews describe a different thing
- Bundling can obscure the true unit cost
- Least suited to a practice with no existing Microsoft footprint
A serious contender where specialty coverage and coding support are the deciding factors rather than price.
Pricing
Pricing on request.
HIPAA posture
BAA available
Sells into health systems and signs business associate agreements. Ask specifically about audio retention.
Published EHR integrations
- epic
Strengths
- Emphasis on specialty specific note behaviour
- Coding support is part of the product rather than an add-on
- Enterprise oriented security posture
Trade-offs
- No published pricing
- Narrower published integration list than the largest vendors
- Enterprise procurement, so slow to trial
Suits organisations that want dictation and simple EHR commands alongside ambient notes, rather than ambient notes alone.
Pricing
Pricing on request. Marketed as a per clinician subscription.
HIPAA posture
BAA available
Signs business associate agreements. Confirm subprocessor list, since the engine is also embedded in other products.
Published EHR integrations
- epic
- oracle-health
- athenahealth
- meditech
Strengths
- Covers more than ambient notes, including dictation and voice commands
- Published integrations across several major systems
- Per clinician subscription is easy to model
Trade-offs
- Breadth can mean less depth in any single workflow
- Pricing not published
- Voice command value depends heavily on your EHR build
The specialty answer rather than the general one. DeepScribe now positions itself around oncology, so it belongs on an oncology shortlist and rarely on a primary care one.
Pricing
Pricing on request. Nothing is published, and most third party figures circulating for this vendor are published by sites that sell a competing scribe.
HIPAA posture
BAA available
States that it adheres to HIPAA and that data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Its security practices page does not name a business associate agreement and directs queries to a compliance address, so get the BAA and the model training terms in writing rather than relying on the badge.
Published EHR integrations
- epic
Strengths
- Genuine oncology depth, which is the hardest note type in this comparison
- Names the oncology record systems its buyers actually run, not only the large ambulatory platforms
- Long enough in market to have been through a full procurement cycle at real sites
Trade-offs
- No published pricing to plan against
- The oncology focus that makes it strong makes it a poor fit for a general ambulatory estate
- Its own security page stops short of documenting a BAA, so that check falls to you
The straightforward answer for a solo clinician or a small practice that wants to start this month without a procurement process.
Pricing
Published pricing with discounted list rates: Core at 79 US dollars per clinician per month unlimited, Premier at 119, and a capped Starter tier at 39, as of August 2026.
HIPAA posture
BAA available
States HIPAA compliance and offers a business associate agreement. Read the standard terms, since at this price point they are not negotiated.
Strengths
- Pricing published, so it can be budgeted without a sales call
- Self serve setup measured in minutes
- Designed for the small practice workflow rather than adapted to it
Trade-offs
- No deep EHR write back, so notes are typically transferred manually
- Standard contract terms rather than negotiated ones
- Not built for health system security review
The lowest friction way for an individual clinician to find out whether this category helps them at all, before any money moves.
Pricing
Free tier published, with paid plans listed. Organisation pricing on request.
HIPAA posture
BAA available
States HIPAA compliance and offers a business associate agreement. On a free tier, read the data use terms carefully before any patient data is involved.
Strengths
- A genuine free tier, which makes personal evaluation cheap
- Fast setup with no integration work
- Popular with individual clinicians, so informal peer review is easy to find
Trade-offs
- Free tier terms need reading before real patient data is used
- No deep EHR write back
- Organisation scale deployment is a different conversation to the free tier
How should you read this comparison?
Start with the buying entity, not the feature table. A twelve clinician group and a four hospital system are shopping in two different markets that happen to share a product category name.
If you have an integration team, an Epic analyst and a security review process, the top of this list is your list, and the trade-off you are managing is procurement time. If you do not, the bottom of the list is your list, and the trade-off you are managing is the missing write back into the chart. Attempting to buy across that line is the most common expensive mistake in this category. Our private practice page works through the small end in more detail.
What actually separates these products?
Less than the marketing suggests on note drafting, and more than it suggests everywhere else.
- Where the note lands. Embedded in the chart, written back through an interface, or pasted by the clinician. This is the difference you feel every visit.
- How much of the buying process the vendor absorbs. Security questionnaires, integration work and training are real costs that do not appear on a price list.
- Specialty behaviour. Template handling and terminology outside primary care vary a great deal.
- Contract flexibility. At the enterprise end you can negotiate retention and training terms. At the self serve end you accept the standard ones.
Note drafting quality is table stakes now. It is not where the decision should be made, and it is the hardest thing to evaluate from a demo.
What could we not verify?
Three things, and we would rather list them than leave the impression this is complete.
We could not verify accuracy claims independently, because no vendor publishes a methodology that would let anyone reproduce them. We could not verify retention behaviour, because retention of raw audio is usually a contract term rather than a published policy. And integration lists come from vendor material, which reflects what is possible somewhere rather than what is live at your site.
Every one of those is a question to put in writing during procurement. The procurement checklist puts them in a form you can send.
How should you run the evaluation?
Shortlist two, not five. A five vendor bake off in a clinical setting exhausts the clinicians before it produces a decision, and the volunteers you burn on it are the ones you needed for the rollout.
Run both in the same specialty, with the same clinicians where possible, over the same period. Collect the same measures for each: minutes per note, same day close rate, and a log of what the clinician had to change. Decide on a date you set in advance.
The ROI calculator gives you the financial frame before the demos start, which is the right order. Walking into a demo without a number in your head is how the number ends up being the vendor's.
What compliance work comes with any of these?
The same work, whichever you choose. A business associate agreement, a documented answer on retention and model training, patient notification, and access controls that match the rest of your estate.
The difference is negotiating room rather than obligation. At the enterprise end you can push on terms. At the self serve end you read the standard agreement and decide. Neither is a shortcut, and the requirement does not scale down with practice size. The HIPAA and AI compliance page covers what to insist on.
Official sources
The primary material behind the compliance claims on this page.
Questions we get asked
Which AI medical scribe is best overall?
The question does not have an answer that survives contact with a real organisation. Best for a health system on Epic and best for a three clinician practice are different products with different prices and different setup burdens. Decide which of those you are first, and the shortlist becomes short.
Are the cheaper self serve products worse?
Not at drafting notes. They are worse at fitting into a large organisation, which is what enterprise pricing pays for: integration depth, security review support, negotiated contract terms and a named account team. If you do not need those, you are not getting less for less.
How current is this page?
It carries the date it was last checked at the top, and the vendor facts come from a single registry that every page on this site reads, so a correction lands everywhere at once. This market moves quickly. Check pricing pages directly before you budget.
Do you take money from any of these vendors?
No. No commissions, no referral fees, no paid placements, no affiliate links. Our revenue comes from advisory work for providers, which is also why we sometimes recommend not buying anything yet.
Why are there only six vendors here?
Because these are the ones we can describe accurately from public material today. The category has many more entrants, and a longer list padded with things we could not verify would look more thorough while being less useful. We add vendors as we can check them.
Make it a formal evaluation
Everything we publish is free to read and free to argue with. When the decision has to be signed, dated and defended to a board, we run the evaluation against your own estate. We take no vendor commissions.
- A 30 minute evaluation call with an analyst, no pitch deck.
- A read on the vendors and the rules in play, and the use cases we would not touch yet.
- A written proposal with scope, sequence and a fixed fee.
- No obligation
- Direct with an analyst, not a sales rep
- BAA available before any PHI discussion