How to choose the right AI behavioral health documentation software for your practice

Last published on January 7th, 2025

Quick summary

• AI scribes can reduce daily documentation time for behavioral health providers by 50% or more
• This reduction in administrative burden leads to improved clinician well-being, higher job satisfaction, more available clinical time, and enhanced patient care
• However, not all AI scribes are created equal. And to choose the right product for your practice, you must understand the key features of this new generation of software
• This article explores 8 essential features of AI behavioral health documentation software

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Let's be real. As behavioral health providers, documentation is the bane of our existence.

We feel a great sense of purpose and fulfillment from the clinical aspects of our role. But the hours spent on notes every day, the constant wrestling with EHRs, and the frustration of keeping up with insurance requirements—those parts of the role we’d gladly give up!

Fortunately, with the latest developments in AI, a new way of managing the administrative side of behavioral health practice has emerged: AI note-taking software. 

Also known as an AI medical scribe, AI behavioral health documentation software provides an intelligent digital solution that reduces the time physicians, mental health clinicians, therapists, psychiatrists, counselors, and addiction professionals spend on clinical documentation by as much as 50%. 

But here's the catch—not all AI mental health documentation software is created equal.

To find the right behavioral health AI scribe for your practice, you must understand the key features to look for in a high-quality product. This knowledge empowers you to make an informed decision, enabling you to weigh the importance of each capability and how it might impact your practice.

This article covers everything you need to know to choose the best AI behavioral health notes software for your needs. To ground the discussion in real-world practice, we use examples of how Heidi Health’s AI medical scribe meets the needs of behavioral health and mental health practitioners of all backgrounds.

What is AI note-taking software?

AI note-taking software can be any product that streamlines and automates clinical documentation using AI. A variety of such products are available today, each utilizing a different approach and set of features to help clinicians reduce administrative burden. 

Heidi Health, a leading AI medical scribe, utilizes ambient listening AI technology to provide real-time transcription of patient interactions.

It works by Heidi sitting in on a clinical encounter and processing the conversation between practitioner and patient. Once the appointment finishes, the provider instructs Heidi to instantly generate editable clinical notes and documents utilizing the data from the appointment.

Heidi includes customizable templates for things like:

• Progress notes
• Referral letters
• Insurance claims
• Intake assessments
• Treatment reports
• Patient instructions

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Once the note or document is generated, all that’s left is for the clinician to review it and add it to the EHR.

Benefits of using AI for mental health notes 

Before exploring the key features of AI behavioral health notes software, let’s explore why you might want to use an AI scribe in your practice.

The benefits of using AI for behavioral health notes is a big topic. But in general, the advantages are:

• Reduced note-taking time - Heidi customers consistently report that their daily documentation time reduces by around 50% (or 1 - 2 hours) while utilizing our AI medical scribe. For behavioral health providers specifically, our data shows that the average time saved on notes per day is 2.34 hours per clinician. To see what this looks like in the real world, here’s an interview with a psychiatrist explaining how Heidi saves him 2 hours of documentation time each day.
  

• Higher quality documentation - Because AI therapy notes software automates much of the documentation process, notes tend to be more detailed and of higher quality. This is especially useful for meeting stringent insurance requirements for behavioral health billing. Some AI scribes, such as Heidi, also include a complete transcript for each session, which can be useful to pull patient quotes or clarify other important information where required.  
• Enhanced clinician well-being - With around half of all behavioral health practitioners experiencing burnout, improving clinician well-being is paramount. Behavioral health AI scribes improve clinician well-being by reducing admin-related stress, giving practitioners more time for self-care, and facilitating more meaningful and rewarding work. When surveyed about their experience with our AI mental health scribe, a staggering 92.6% of behavioral health clinicians reported that Heidi reduced stress and burnout, with 96.8% saying they feel more satisfied at work using Heidi.

• Improved patient experience - When using AI for mental health notes, clinicians are free to dedicate 100% of their focus to the patient during a session, safe in the knowledge that documentation is being looked after. This promotes better clinical outcomes and makes patients feel more heard and attended to, improving the overall patient experience.

• Increased efficiency - Most therapists and behavioral health clinicians spend several hours each day on administration. By liberating this time, AI therapy documentation software gives clinicians and practice owners the option to direct this increased capacity into delivering more billable care. Providers also commonly see financial benefits from improved billing accuracy, reduced insurance denials, less time spent on prior authorizations, and retiring legacy note-taking software.

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Now that you know about the benefits of AI software for mental health documentation, it’s time to discuss how to choose the right tool for your practice.

8 essential features for AI behavioral health documentation software

The eight capabilities below are crucial factors to assess when evaluating an AI mental health scribe. Remember that everyone’s practice needs and preferences are unique, so certain features may be more or less important in your situation.

1. Unbreakable security

Compliance with privacy and data-security regulations is an essential licensing requirement for behavioral health clinicians and organizations. Considering the sensitive nature of the topics covered in therapy and mental health care, protecting patients’ privacy is also an ethical and moral issue.

Looking for HIPAA-compliant therapy notes software is a good first step. However, several additional security features are critical, such as:

• End-to-end encryption of all patient data
• Strict authentication mechanisms
• Customizable non-retention policies
• Regular security audits
• Clear policies on the secondary use of data

These robust data security features ensure patient data is never at risk. They also protect the privacy and confidentiality of patients through strict controls around how staff within an organization can access clinical information.

How we handle security at Heidi

Heidi employs a comprehensive, multi-layered security strategy that exceeds many global healthcare privacy regulations (we’re HIPAA, PIPEDA, GDPR, APP, ISO 27001, and CEC compliant). 

All patient data is fully encrypted at rest and in transit. We never store, share, or sell your information. Plus, information from your sessions on Heidi isn’t used to train our AI models. 

Clinicians and practices can set custom data retention periods within Heidi, from 24 hours to indefinite storage. You can also customize security measures like multi-factor authentication and role-based access controls within teams.

2. Impeccable accuracy and detail

Behavioral health is known for having lengthier documentation than other specialties, but this doesn’t mean accuracy is any less critical. In fact, due to stringent insurance requirements, the bar for detail and accuracy in mental health documentation can be even higher than in other areas of healthcare (evidenced by the fact that denials are twice as common in behavioral health compared to other medical care).

To be effective, AI behavioral health notes software must accurately process information related to aspects of practice like:

• Mental status examinations
• Risk assessment language
• Treatment modalities and interventions
• Client quotes and affect observations
• Family dynamics and social context
• Treatment progress indicators

Generating a note with a truly accurate behavioral health AI scribe is a glorious experience. You simply prompt the tool to generate your desired document, and it includes all relevant clinical information in your preferred format.

How Heidi ensures accurate behavioral health documentation

Heidi uses a two-pronged approach to generate accurate clinical documentation for behavioral health clinicians.

Firstly, our custom-built model is specifically trained to process complex clinical language and mental health terminology accurately. The AI understands therapeutic approaches and distinguishes between different types of interventions. Heidi also flags and highlights risk-related statements made by patients.

Secondly, to ensure documentation meets medicolegal and insurance standards, clinicians can customize the level of detail and topics covered in a note or document. For example, patient quotes are included to justify clinical reasoning with Heidi’s Voice option set to Super Detailed. Customizable templates ensure all necessary information regarding risk, treatments, and insurance (like CPT codes) is automatically included in outputs. And, the full transcript accompanying every session makes clarifying or adding detail to any note or document a breeze. 

Image of customizing voice to super detailed   

Flexible and adaptable templates

Good AI note-taking software should adapt to you, not the other way around. This is especially true for behavioral health, where the different clinical specialties, treatment modalities, practice settings, insurance requirements, state regulations, and internal quality standards all impact documentation requirements. 

At a minimum, we recommend choosing behavioral health notes software that supports your commonly used note types and allows template customization.

Here’s our shortlist of flexible documentation features:

• Customizable templates to match your preferred format and style
• Flexible note types (SOAP, DAP, PIRP, etc)
• Adjustable word choices, grammar preferences, and formatting options
• Capacity to build note and document templates from scratch
• Assisted template changes and optimization

Robust template features are crucial because they remove the legwork in sorting and organizing information. Without these capabilities, AI for therapy notes isn’t much better than standard voice-to-text software, where a clinician receives a transcript that still needs to be changed into the desired format.

Infinitely customizable templates 

To get you up and running quickly with personalized AI mental health notes, you can utilize a variety of pre-made templates for different note and document styles. These are available while you’re transcribing a session and via our Template Community, which contains dozens of field-tested specialty-appropriate templates created by fellow behavioral health clinicians. 

Combine templates with preferences for things like date formatting and word choices (e.g., generic vs. brand names of drugs), and you’ll generate perfect AI-assisted notes that sound just like you in no time.

When you’re feeling a little more confident, our intuitive template editor makes it easy to tweak your favorite templates or create an entirely new one from scratch. If you struggle with template building, Heidi’s Medical Knowledge team is on hand to help you craft a perfect template for your needs.  Plus, as you use templates, Heidi adds them to your personal library, ensuring you always have a tailored template for every clinical encounter.

4. Multi-platform support

To consistently reduce documentation time, AI for therapy notes and mental health care must work everywhere you practice. For example, clinicians who conduct home or facility visits need software that works just as well on a mobile device as a PC. Or, if you primarily conduct telehealth sessions, your tool must be compatible with your headset and telehealth platform.

For a seamless workflow across all settings, we recommend choosing AI behavioral health documentation software that has the following:

• Mobile and desktop apps
• Deep telehealth compatibility
• Offline support for poor network conditions
• Seamless syncing between different modalities

The capabilities above produce a truly portable mental health AI scribe you can use anywhere. This means your documentation workflow stays consistent whether you're on a home visit, seeing a patient in the hospital, or conducting a clinic appointment.

Customization with Heidi

Therapy and behavioral healthcare is often delivered in volatile and unpredictable settings. To ensure clinicians never get caught without their AI scribe, all Heidi users have simultaneous access to a Heidi browser app, desktop app (optimized for telehealth), mobile app (compatible on phones and tablets), and Chrome extension (“floats” above any web-based EHR). 

No matter which version of Heidi you use, sessions, notes, and documents instantly sync with the cloud and are accessible on all your devices.

5. Comprehensive team features

Early iterations of AI medical scribes were more suited to solo practice. But now, the best AI for mental health progress notes software products have robust team features, reflecting the reality that modern behavioral health practice often involves multiple collaborating clinicians and input from front desk staff, billing & coding specialists, and clinical assistants.

Team capabilities to look out for include:

• Secure sharing of team templates
• Collaborative documentation capabilities
• Role-based access controls (to accommodate clinical and non-clinical staff)

Even if you don’t plan to use them right away, it’s wise to choose a product at least with optional team features. That way, if you need them in the future, you won’t have to transition to different behavioral health notes software.

Working with Heidi Teams

Heidi Teams is an optional set of capabilities that enables practices to maintain documentation consistency while improving collaboration. Administrators can create standardized templates, monitor documentation quality, and manage team-wide documentation and access settings. 

The Heidi platform supports multiple providers contributing to documentation for a single episode of care (while maintaining clear authorship records and preventing unauthorized access or changes). Heidi Teams software for mental health also supports role-based access controls, granting appropriate permissions to different clinical and non-clinical team members. 

6. Plays well with other software

The reality of modern practice is that even with “all-in-one” EHRs, most behavioral health clinicians still utilize several software programs throughout the day. Therefore, to meaningfully reduce administrative burden, behavioral health documentation software must work seamlessly with the other tools that power your practice.

Here are some ways behavioral health AI scribes interface with other software tools:

• Formal integrations - where the mental health AI scribe is embedded into a 3rd party tool, like an EHR.
• Interoperability - such as a therapy notes AI tool that allows easy copy & paste or direct emailing of notes and documents.
• Embedded tools - external software programs and knowledge bases integrated into the AI scribe, such as ICD-10 or CPT codes and evidence-based guidelines.

Formal integrations have traditionally been the gold standard in software compatibility. But, with the flexible interfaces of modern software platforms, interoperability is becoming an increasingly effective alternative.

Heidi’s approach to integrations and interoperability

At Heidi, we take a multi-layered approach to integrating with the existing ecosystem of behavioral health software, including:

1. Full integrations - we’ve launched several full integrations with leading EHRs already, with many more in the pipeline. 
2. Heidi widget - our “self-serve” SDK (software development kit) enables EHR vendors to easily include Heidi’s AI capability in their product.
3. Chrome extension - the Heidi Chrome extension “floats” above any web-based EHR, supporting push integration to save you from tedious copy & pasting of notes.

Regarding embedded tools to support your practice, Heidi can already automatically populate your notes and documents with relevant coding and billing information. Plus, we're in the process of integrating several evidence-based guideline tools directly into Heidi, so you can access your favorite knowledge bases seamlessly while completing clinical documentation.

7. Specially designed for behavioral health

We don’t need to tell you that behavioral health care is different from general medical practice. Unfortunately, as with EHRs, some software providers simply re-skin conventional AI scribes and market them as appropriate for use in behavioral health practice.

There’s some overlap between all AI note-taking software. However, effective AI behavioral health documentation software must be specially customized for mental health, substance misuse, and therapy practice settings. This not only involves training the AI models on specialty-specific clinical data. It also requires practical features that fit with the varying requirements of behavioral health practice.

Heidi’s behavioral health training  

Our mission has always been to create an AI medical scribe for all clinicians. Therefore, in the ongoing training of our purpose-built AI model, we carefully address the practice requirements of both behavioral health and general medical clinicians. 

This is evident in the specialized clinical knowledge Heidi possesses regarding behavioral health, therapy, and addictions. In the practical capabilities that facilitate high-quality behavioral health documentation (such as generating direct patient quotes and customizable mental health templates). And in the ecosystem of Heidi apps that facilitate all styles and settings of practice.

8. Intuitive and easy-to-use

It’s easy to get preoccupied with the technical features of AI medical scribes. But as clinicians, we know that for AI for mental health notes software to be effective, it must be simple to use and seamlessly fit into daily workflows. 

Otherwise, no matter how technically impressive the tool is, any efficiency gains are quickly lost through frustration and trying to adapt your practice to fit with the tool (rather than the other way around).  

Built by clinicians, for clinicians

Due to our firsthand experience with clunky and unintuitive EHRs, the team Heidi is obsessed with building simple and easy to use AI note-taking tools for behavioral health providers.

Just some of the factors that make Heidi a delight to use are:

• A simple, intuitive interface
• Minimal training and onboarding requirements
• A library of field-tested speciality-appropriate templates ready for immediate use (via the Template Community)
• Easy editing capabilities
• Compatible across multiple devices

In addition to making our AI medical scribe easy to use, we provide personalized support for individuals and teams who require assistance with onboarding, setup, and template design. We’ve also created an extensive library of self-serve training materials to help you become a pro at Heidi in no time.

9. Proven ROI and demonstrated win cases

As glorious as it would be, hiring a dedicated in-person scribe simply isn’t financially viable for most of us. In contrast, effective AI behavioral health notes software reliably generates a positive ROI by liberating clinical time previously lost to administrative tasks.

You might utilize the time liberated by a behavioral health AI scribe to get home on time rather than see more patients. However, we believe comparing subscription costs with liberated clinical time is a key factor in evaluating the best AI for therapy notes software.

Heidi’s ROI results

The first thing to note is that Heidi’s core scribing feature is free. Considering most behavioral health clinicians save at least 2 hours per day from the tool, you can do the math to gauge the potential financial impact on your practice.

In terms of ROI data at a clinic level, here are some results achieved by Heidi customers:

• Priority Physicians, a concierge medicine practice, achieved a 6x ROI on implementation costs, liberating $16,000 in lost clinical time during their first 14 weeks with Heidi.
• Nourish Family Nutrition, a team of specialized dieticians and psychotherapists, generated a 5x ROI in 12 weeks, saving over $10,000 in clinical time.
• Cedar Recovery, an addiction treatment center operating in 14 locations across Tennessee and Virginia, saved $35,000 in clinical time over 13 weeks, realizing a 5x ROI and Heidi’s cost.

While Heidi’s direct financial returns are huge, behavioral health organizations also report valuable improvements in other business areas, such as employee well-being, staff retention, and job satisfaction.

Final thoughts: Choosing the right behavioral health AI scribe

High-quality AI behavioral health documentation software reduces administrative burden, enhances clinician well-being, increases efficiency, and improves patient experience. Most providers also quickly generate a positive ROI, with liberated clinical time far outweighing software costs.

However, considering how new AI note-taking technology is, it’s exceedingly difficult for clinicians and practice owners to know which product to choose.

In our opinion, the only way to choose the right AI mental health documentation software for your practice is by understanding the core features of this ground-breaking technology (which we’ve detailed in this article). Armed with this knowledge, you can assess how important each capability is to your practice and then evaluate products based on objective criteria.

With its intuitive interface, robust team features, extensive customizability, and proven track record of helping mental health professionals, therapists, and addiction specialists level up their practice, we think Heidi is the best AI scribe for all behavioral health clinicians. 

We’re so confident you’ll love Heidi that we made the core AI scribing feature free. You can use it for as long as you want, without paying anything, to see if Heidi really is the right AI behavioral health documentation software for your practice. 

‍Try Heidi today (no credit card necessary).