Summary
Six questions, in this order. Will they sign a BAA. Are you legally allowed to record where you practise. Does it support your EHR by name, today. Which tier are the letters and coding on. What happens to the audio. And what does your evening actually consist of.
The last one decides whether any of this helps. The only randomised trial found the best product saved about 41 seconds a note and none reduced after-hours work.2Lukac PJ, Turner W, Vangala S, et al. Ambient AI Scribes in Clinical Practice, A Randomized Trial. NEJM AI 2025;2(12). 238 physicians, 14 specialties, approximately 72,000 encounters. One product cut note-writing time 9.5 percent. The other showed no significant change. Neither reduced after-hours EHR time. If your evening is letters and results, a faster note is not your purchase.
See it in your clinicLetters, coding, cited answers and the briefing on every plan, not a tier above.
Request a demoAsk them in this order
Start with the BAA, because it is a yes or a no and a no ends the conversation. Any vendor handling your audio, transcript or draft note is a business associate under 45 CFR 160.103 and must sign one.3A vendor handling PHI is a business associate under 45 CFR 160.103 and must sign a BAA. Sixteen US states require all-party consent to record. In the NHS, a tool that only transcribes and summarises stopped being a medical device on 29 July 2026, though a current DTAC and the clinical safety standards still apply. If their BAA reserves the right to use your patients' data for their own purposes, that is also a no.
Then the recording law, because it is the one that reaches you personally. Sixteen states require every person in the room to consent and some carry criminal exposure for the clinician rather than a fine for the practice. In the NHS the question is different again. Since 29 July 2026 a tool that only transcribes and summarises is not a medical device in Great Britain, but a current DTAC, the supplier's DCB0129 and your own DCB0160 still apply, and deploying without them is your liability rather than the vendor's.
Then your EHR by name, in general availability, today. Not on a roadmap and not in beta. Ask whether it reads as well as writes, because a push-only integration cannot tell you a result came back on Thursday.
Then the tier. One widely used scribe puts letters and coding on a $119 tier while the note is $79. Another gates EHR push above its entry plan.4Tier gating as at July 2026. Confirm with each vendor. The number you were quoted is often not the number that includes the thing you wanted.
Then the audio. Kept for how long, deletable on your terms, used for training or not, stored where. At least one scribe never stores the encounter at all, which removes the question rather than answering it.
The question that decides it
Write down what you did after your last clinic. Not what you think you do. What you actually did on Tuesday.2Lukac PJ, Turner W, Vangala S, et al. Ambient AI Scribes in Clinical Practice, A Randomized Trial. NEJM AI 2025;2(12). 238 physicians, 14 specialties, approximately 72,000 encounters. One product cut note-writing time 9.5 percent. The other showed no significant change. Neither reduced after-hours EHR time.
For most clinicians the list is letters, codes, results, messages and calls. Physicians spend close to two hours on documentation and desk work for every hour of direct patient care and that has not moved since 2016.1Sinsky C, Colligan L, Li L, et al. Allocation of physician time in ambulatory practice. Ann Intern Med 2016;165:753-760. The note is a small part of it. Every ambient scribe on the market reaches the note.
If your evening is genuinely only notes, buy the smallest subscription that signs a BAA and supports your EHR. A $39 published plan is a real answer and we would tell you to take it.
If your evening is the rest of it
wai covers the consultation, the front desk and the patient record on one system. The briefing opens before the patient sits down and is assembled from the chart, so it knows the screening is overdue whether or not anyone mentions it. The letters draft from the consultation and the chart together. The coding attaches to the right problem. The phone is answered by something that can see what happened in the room.
The answer depends on your Tuesday
Write down what you did after your last clinic. If the list is notes, buy the smallest subscription that signs a BAA and supports your EHR. The number no scribe on this page reaches is the code. Up to 19 percent of E/M visits are undercoded at roughly $37 each, and Medicare Advantage downcoding runs a reported $28,000 to $74,000 a physician a year without ever showing as a denial.
If the list is letters, codes, unactioned results and calls you promised to return, no product in the ambient scribe category reaches any of it, and the price comparison you were about to run is the wrong comparison.
What we are not claiming
We have no randomised evidence and one competitor does. We have no Best in KLAS and another does. We have no £0 tier and a third does. If any one of those is your deciding question, you already have your answer and it is not us.
Availability
wai Clinician runs a 7-day trial with no minimum term. wai Admin runs as a 90-day pilot reporting revenue, hours saved and patients cared for. Pricing is on one page.
Frequently asked questions
What should I look for in an AI medical scribe?
Ask in this order. First the BAA, because any vendor handling your audio, transcript or draft note is a business associate under 45 CFR 160.103 and a refusal ends the conversation. Then the recording law where you practise, because sixteen states require all-party consent and some carry criminal exposure for the clinician personally. Then your EHR by name, in general availability today rather than on a roadmap. Then which tier the letters and coding sit on. Then the audio retention and training position. Then what your evening actually consists of.
What is the most important question to ask an AI scribe vendor?
Whether they will sign a business associate agreement, and whether their BAA reserves the right to use your patients data for their own purposes. Both are yes or no and both can end the conversation before you look at a single feature. After that, the most useful question is what your evening consists of, which is a question for you rather than the vendor. Physicians spend close to two hours on documentation and desk work for every hour of direct care, the note is a small part of it, and every ambient scribe on the market reaches the note.
Which AI scribe is best?
There is no single answer and any page claiming one is selling you something. One product holds the only randomised win and never stores the encounter. Another holds Best in KLAS in 2025 and 2026 and the deepest integration with the largest US hospital records system. The smallest published subscription is $39 and signs you up in four minutes. One scribe has the only real £0 tier. If your evening is genuinely only notes, buy the smallest subscription that signs a BAA and supports your EHR. If your evening is letters, codes, results and calls, no scribe reaches any of it.
Write down what you did after your last clinic.
Start the trial and run it on your own list for a week. If it works, the 90-day pilot reports revenue, hours saved and patients cared for from your clinic. If it does not, you have lost a week.
About this article. Written and published by wai, which sells one of the products discussed and has said where competitors are the better purchase. Regulations, trial data and tier structures are cited in the margin and were current at the updated date above. Pricing and tier gating in this category change frequently, so confirm directly with any vendor, including us. This is general information and not legal advice. wai has no peer-reviewed clinical trials published to date and does not claim any. All names are marks belonging to their owners. We have priced and assessed every competitor on this page from their own published material or independent reporting, including the places where they beat us. We would rather you had the whole picture and chose someone else than had half of it and chose us.
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