Can You Use Freed With Epic? The Browser Push Workaround Explained

Two ways. The first is copy and paste: the clinician records the visit in the Freed mobile app or web app, reviews the generated note, copies it and pastes it into the note in Hyperspace or Hyperdrive. Nothing about Epic is involved. The second is Freed's EHR push, available on the Premier plan: a Chrome extension that, when the EHR is open in a Chrome tab, maps the finished note into the EHR's note fields and enters it, in Freed's words, the way a person would. Freed's own material says the push "automatically adapts to your EHR's structure, whether you use Epic, Cerner, Practice Fusion, or any other browser based system" in a blog post, while the supported list on the product page omits Epic. Treat Epic push as unsupported unless Freed confirms it in writing for your Epic web client.

Both paths share three properties. Freed never reads the chart, so there is no pre-charting, no problem list awareness and no visit diagnosis context. The patient is whoever the clinician says it is, because there is no encounter context from Epic; a wrong chart paste is possible and the system cannot catch it. And the note enters Epic as free text, not into SmartSections or SmartData, so any structured downstream use is lost. Our integration questions guide explains why these matter more than they seem in a demo.

Start with the Epic side. Most Epic organisations run Hyperdrive as a desktop client, not a Chrome tab, so a Chrome extension has nothing to attach to. Where Epic is accessed through a browser, a browser extension that reads and writes the page is exactly the kind of software Epic's security guidance and your own information security policy exist to control. An extension installed on a personal laptop to type into a hospital chart is a shadow IT event, and if it is discovered during an audit the conversation will not be about documentation time.

Then the compliance side. Freed signs a business associate agreement with the individual or practice that subscribes, not with the health system whose Epic instance the notes land in. If a clinician subscribes personally, the health system may have protected health information flowing to a vendor with which it has no agreement. The HIPAA and AI page sets out why that matters, and the breach exposure calculator puts a number on it. Our HIPAA compliant AI scribe checklist is the practical version.

Finally, the clinical side. Wrong chart pastes, notes that reference a patient by the wrong name because the clinician mis-typed it in Freed, and free text notes that bypass structured templates are all real failure modes of a disconnected scribe. None is unique to Freed; all are consequences of having no integration.

In narrow circumstances. A solo clinician with privileges at an Epic hospital who also runs a private clinic on a small EHR may use Freed for the clinic and paste into Epic occasionally, with the hospital's knowledge and a BAA that covers the practice. A health system running a short, sanctioned comparison of standalone scribes before an enterprise procurement may include Freed to understand what a low cost product delivers. A group waiting months for an enterprise Epic scribe rollout may permit a documented interim workflow, with copy and paste rather than a browser extension, a signed BAA, and a policy that clinicians read every note before it is signed.

What does not make sense is an unsanctioned personal subscription used with a hospital Epic login. If that is happening in your organisation, and it often is, the fix is an enterprise decision, not a reprimand. The small practice AI scribe buying guide covers the standalone market, and the scribe pricing comparison shows what an Epic integrated alternative costs by comparison. Our Freed pricing page has the published plans.

• Is EHR push supported for Epic, on which Epic web client, and will you put that in writing? If the answer is no, the workflow is copy and paste.
• Will you sign a business associate agreement with the health system whose Epic instance the notes enter, not only with the subscribing clinician or practice?
• Where is audio processed and stored, for how long, and is any of it used to train shared models?
• Does the Chrome extension read any page content beyond the note fields it writes to, and is there a security assessment we can share with our information security team?
• Is there an Epic integration on the roadmap, and if so through which programme and by when?
• What are the group pricing terms, since the published plans are per individual?

Our vendor HIPAA question list covers the compliance side in more depth.

The most useful thing an independent review does here is find out whether Freed is already in use with your Epic instance, and then turn that from a compliance problem into a procurement decision. We survey clinician use of personal scribes, quantify the exposure, and compare the cost of an Epic integrated scribe against what clinicians are already paying out of pocket. Often the enterprise case is stronger than anyone expected. We take no vendor commissions and we have no stake in whether the answer is Freed, an Epic embedded vendor, or nothing yet.

Our governance and compliance service handles the policy and BAA side, and our vendor selection service runs the enterprise comparison. Book a call if you suspect personal scribes are already in use on your Epic instance.