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Wendy Leonard, MS, RDN, owner of Rhode Island Nutrition Therapy, started looking for an AI charting solution four years ago. She had a high school intern search the internet for anything that could help. He came back empty-handed. "Nothing's HIPAA compliant," he told her. So she waited.

That search tells you something about where we are now. Four years ago, the tools didn't exist. Today, they do—and the gap between practices that have adopted them and those that haven't is starting to show up in the numbers.

We hosted a live webinar this month bringing together Wendy and lead dietitian Annie Dupré from Rhode Island Nutrition Therapy to talk candidly about what AI Scribe has changed in their practice. Here's what we heard.

Documentation was never the job

Before getting into the tool, we want to name the problem it's solving—because it's bigger than "charting takes too long."

According to a 2022 JAMA study, 91% of office-based physicians spend time outside of normal hours on clinical documentation. Six hours a day in the EHR is commonly reported. In some studies, providers spend more time on documentation and administrative tasks than on direct patient care. In a 2019 Mayo Clinic study, TMC put burnout rates at 43% of physicians, with EHR frustration listed as a top driver.

This isn't a physician issue. The chat during our webinar was immediate and unanimous—dietitians, mental health counselors, and specialty providers across the country said yes, loudly, to after-hours charting. "Since 1995 when I started nursing," one attendee wrote. "Days," wrote another.

The burden is real, and it compounds. Late-night charting sessions eat into the time that would otherwise go to family, exercise, rest. That lost time drives burnout, which drives turnover. Burnout from EHR & documentation frustration costs an estimated $4.6 billion annually in clinician turnover and reduced clinical hours. And documentation fatigue affects accuracy: when you're charting your eighth patient from memory at 9 PM, the notes reflect that.

There's also a quieter cost that doesn't show up in studies. When you're typing during a session, you're not fully present with your client. Several attendees flagged this in the chat: the problem isn't just time—it's the mental split of trying to document and listen at the same time.

What Rhode Island Nutrition Therapy found

Wendy didn't come to the webinar with soft impressions. She came with data she'd actually run on her own practice.

Per provider, per month: 16 hours saved on documentation. 10 to 15 more appointments that could be scheduled. A 70–80% reduction in charting time overall. Before AI Scribe, her providers were spending about 15 minutes charting for every hour of face-to-face time. That time is now largely reclaimed.

From Annie's perspective as a clinician, the biggest change wasn't personal—it was consistency. Rhode Island Nutrition Therapy has providers with different specialties (pediatric nutrition, functional dietetics) and different communication styles. Before AI Scribe, notes varied depending on who wrote them and when. Now, the SOAP notes generated are structurally consistent across the whole team, regardless of what was discussed or who conducted the session. For referring providers receiving those notes, and for internal audits, that consistency matters.

It also unlocked something Wendy had wanted to do for years but couldn't find the bandwidth for: a VIP referring provider program. The protocol is simple—once a provider reviews and signs the AI-generated note, it gets faxed to the referring physician immediately. Physicians don't want seven pages; they want a clean SOAP note that tells them whether their patient was seen, what's being addressed, and whether there's anything they need to do. That's exactly what goes out. "It's free marketing," Wendy said. "Once you start doing that, you potentially just got yourself a new referring provider."

She described trying a third-party AI scribing solution before Healthie launched its own—a contract she'd signed and wanted to work. It didn't. Customer service was slow, and the integration with her EHR required constant copy-pasting. "I was kind of angry over this," she said. When Healthie announced AI Scribe was rolling out in beta, she signed up immediately.

How the tool actually works

For anyone who hasn't used it yet: AI Scribe is built directly into Healthie. You don't manage a separate app, toggle between platforms, or copy-paste notes. The same place you schedule appointments and document care is the same place AI Scribe runs.

Setup is done at the admin level. Once your account has AI Scribe enabled, you go to Member Settings to grant providers permission to use it, then go to your appointment types and tell the tool which charting form to generate for each session type. Healthie supports any form in its default library—SOAP, ADIME, PHQ-9, and others—and any custom form you've built with the form builder. You can attach a different note template to each appointment type.

For telehealth, Scribe runs through Zoom for Healthcare in the background. Clients see a brief notification; providers see a button to turn off transcription at any point if a patient isn't comfortable. For in-person sessions, you open the appointment on your calendar and click "Launch AI Scribe for In-Person Session." A transcribing widget runs while you meet with your client, and you can mute or end it at any time.

Within one to two minutes of ending a session, a notification appears in Healthie's bell icon: your AI-generated note is ready for review. The note isn't automatically added to the chart—it sits in a draft state (marked with a lightning bolt icon) until the provider reviews it, clicks "Convert to Chart Note," edits anything they want to adjust, and signs it. That human-in-the-loop step is intentional.

Annie described the editing as minimal for most patients. The area where she spends a bit more time is with eating disorder patients, where she's more careful about clinical language and tone—a sensitivity she doesn't expect AI to fully calibrate. For everything else, the notes come out clean.

Once a note is finalized, you can fax it to a referring provider directly from within Healthie, or share the plan section with the patient so they receive a summary through their Healthie portal. Nothing leaves the platform, and Healthie and Zoom don't use session content to train the underlying model.

On patient consent—and the resistance to getting started

Two concerns came up repeatedly in the chat: patients not wanting to be recorded, and providers feeling overwhelmed by the implementation.

On consent: Wendy's experience is that most patients are fine with it. Rhode Island Nutrition Therapy includes disclosure in intake forms, reviews it during the first session, and gives patients a genuine opt-out. "It's how you present it," she said. People are getting more accustomed to this kind of technology—especially in healthcare, where many patients have already encountered ambient recording from their physicians.

On implementation: Wendy was direct here too. Don't roll this out when you're maxed out. Set aside a week or two when you actually have the capacity. But once you do—and especially if you've tried a third-party scribing tool that required workarounds—the difference with a native integration is significant. "It's not as much as you think," she said about the setup time.

Annie, coming from a Gen Z perspective, called the learning curve essentially flat. "It's almost as simple as just pressing go." For in-person sessions, the main things to remember are connecting your audio before the session starts and keeping the Scribe tab open while you're meeting with your client.

What's coming next

A few features currently in development that came up in the webinar:

‍AI Scribe Instructions — coming very soon, this will let you add a custom text field to your charting form giving the AI specific guidance: how you prefer to refer to the people you see (patients, clients, members), language to include or avoid, tone preferences. This closes the gap between what the AI generates and what your practice's documentation style looks like.

‍AI Summaries — two types are in development. Encounter Summaries will add a brief overview blurb to each note. Chart Summaries will look at a client's full history and generate an AI overview of who the client is, visible on their profile.

‍AI Scribe for Group Telehealth Sessions — not yet available, but actively in development. You can subscribe for updates at Healthie's product portal.

Quick FAQ

How much does it cost? $35/month for 40 hours of transcription time, shared across your organization. Overage is $0.85/hour. Unused hours roll over to the next month. You're only charged for sessions where a transcript was actually generated.

‍Does AI Scribe work for in-person sessions, not just telehealth? Yes—both are supported.

‍Can I use my own custom note templates? Yes. Any form you've built in Healthie's form builder works with AI Scribe.

‍Does the AI-generated note automatically go into the chart? No. It stays in draft until the provider reviews it and clicks "Convert to Chart Note."

‍Will AI Scribe show as another participant in my Zoom session? No. It runs in the background—clients and providers see only each other.

‍What if a patient doesn't want to be recorded? The provider can turn off transcription at any time with a single button click. No transcript will be generated for that session.

‍Is group session scribing available? Not yet for group sessions—currently 1:1 only. Group telehealth is in development.

‍How do I get started? If you're already on Healthie, go to Integrations > AI Charting and follow the prompts. New to Healthie? Start a free trial at gethealthie.com.

You can read more about Healthie’s AI Scribe functionality here: https://help.gethealthie.com/article/1269-ai-scribe-by-healthie

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Questions? Reach us at hello@gethealthie.com.

The full webinar recording is available here.

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