A healthcare provider can use several free AI tools at work. Heidi, Carepatron and, for verified US clinicians, ChatGPT for Clinicians are built for clinical work and can take patient information once a signed agreement covers your plan. Free consumer chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are safe only for tasks with no patient information.
"Free" and "safe with patient information" are different questions, and mixing them up is the expensive mistake. A free plan can be perfectly good for drafting a newsletter or a staff rota and quite wrong for a consultation summary. Each of the six free options below is judged on three lines that matter to an owner: what the limits are, what the data terms say, and whether a business associate agreement (BAA, the contract that makes a vendor accountable for protected health information) is available on that plan. Prices and limits are as of November 2026 and change often, so recheck them before you decide.
The decision before you pick a tool
Ask one question of every task: does it contain information about an identifiable patient? If no, any free plan is acceptable as far as privacy goes, and the choice is about quality. If yes, the tool needs a contract that covers health data, not just a good privacy page. For a practice with patients in the EU, the equivalent is a processor agreement and a lawful basis under data-protection law; the companion tutorials on GDPR in a dental practice and whether you need a DPIA cover that route.
Keep a simple two-column list taped inside the practice manager's drawer: "no patient data, any tool" and "patient data, approved tools only". The six tiers below fit onto it.
1. Heidi free: a scribe with a free starting plan
Heidi is an AI medical scribe. Its pricing page offers a free plan, with Clinician and Practice plans on a 14-day free trial and Enterprise by arrangement. As the page described it when I read it, the free plan includes unlimited transcription, standard templates, task management, CPD and CME tracking, and evidence answers with citations, while features such as advanced templates and patient-context answers are limited, and document and session sharing, coding, EHR integration, team management and custom terms are not included. A smaller weekly allowance applies to agent usage, though scribing and clinical evidence queries do not count against it. The page showed no prices for paid plans; it said "talk to us".
Data terms. The pricing page itself makes no BAA claim and links to compliance pages for several jurisdictions and a trust centre. Heidi's HIPAA page says it makes a BAA available to every covered entity it works with, but does not say which plans that covers, and "custom terms" sit outside the free plan. Its privacy policy says no patient data is used to train, develop or improve its AI models, and that sensitive health information is kept only for as long as the practitioner requests. Before putting patient audio through the free plan, get written confirmation that the agreement you need applies to it, and check the retention setting your account actually uses.
When it suits. A solo clinician testing whether scribing saves time. Watch-out: a free plan with no team features means notes stay inside one clinician's account, so there is no practice-level oversight. That is a governance gap for a group practice.
The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration
From formulas and pivot tables to Power Query, DAX, VBA and AI with Copilot, ChatGPT and Claude — hands-on from the first lesson.
By Sagnik Bhattacharya and Virginia Thorn, Primetime Emmy Award winner
Buy now2. Carepatron free: practice software with AI built in
Carepatron is practice-management software with scheduling, notes and an AI note taker. On its pricing page the free plan is $0 and lists unlimited clients, unlimited practitioners billed per user, 1GB of storage, 1M AI tokens, 1K AI automation credits, 1K tasks, 100 appointments, and 100 email sends a month per user, with no SMS. Only the email row states a period; the page does not say whether the appointment, token and credit allowances reset monthly, so ask before you plan around them. The page names an AI scribe and note taker on the free plan without stating a cap on notes, so the token and credit figures are the real limits. Paid plans showed as Plus at $15.50 a month and Advanced at $19.50 a month on a promotional half price for six months (list $31 and $39), with 20% off for yearly billing.
Data terms. The page lists HIPAA and GDPR under security and compliance, and describes its email integration as HIPAA-encrypted, but it does not mention a BAA, so the page alone does not tell you whether one is available on the free plan. Ask support for the agreement in writing before you load patient records.
When it suits. A sole practitioner who wants booking, notes and a client portal in one place and can live within 100 appointments. Watch-out: 100 appointments is roughly one busy week for a full-time clinician, so if the allowance turns out to be monthly or lifetime, budget for the paid plan if you adopt it.
3. ChatGPT for Clinicians: free for verified US clinicians
OpenAI made ChatGPT for Clinicians free in 2026 for verified individual clinicians in the US. Its help centre lists the eligible groups as physicians (MD/DO), nurse practitioners, physician assistants and pharmacists, and sign-up needs a ChatGPT account, a valid NPI (National Provider Identifier) and a licence the third-party verification provider can confirm. It opens as a separate workspace next to your existing ChatGPT account. It is a clinician-focused version of ChatGPT, not an ambient scribe: it offers clinical search with citations, deep research across medical literature, drafting of notes, referral letters, prior authorisation letters and patient instructions for clinician review, and CME credits on eligible clinical questions. Image generation is not supported.
Data terms and BAA. OpenAI's help centre says content shared with ChatGPT for Clinicians is not used to train its models, and that eligible individual clinicians can review and sign a BAA for their workspace under Settings > Agreements. It also says not to share protected health information unless a BAA is in place and you are authorised to sign one for your account. That last condition matters to an owner: an employed clinician may have no authority to sign a BAA on the practice's behalf, and an individual workspace sits outside the practice's administrative control. Until the BAA is signed by someone entitled to sign it, treat the workspace as a no-patient-data tool. OpenAI also warns against sending protected health information to third-party connected apps without the right permissions and agreements.
When it suits. A US clinician who wants a reference and drafting assistant with citations. Watch-out: it is built for individuals. For several users, central admin controls or a BAA covering the whole practice, OpenAI points organisations to ChatGPT for Healthcare, its organisational product, so ask OpenAI for that plan's price and terms.
4. ChatGPT Free: the general-purpose chatbot
The consumer free plan offers text chats and limited use of features. From OpenAI's help pages: Free users are limited to three file uploads a day, a project on Free holds up to five files, and audio uploads are not available on Free. On personal Free, Plus and Pro accounts, sharing chats for model training is on by default; the switch to turn it off is called "Improve the model for everyone".
Data terms. The contract is the consumer terms, with no BAA. The BAA routes OpenAI documents that I could find are for its API, for ChatGPT for Clinicians and for its organisational healthcare product; a personal Free account is not among them. So the working rule is simple: no patient information, including "anonymised" notes where the context would identify someone in a small town or a rare condition.
When it suits. Patient leaflets with generic wording, a draft job advert, a plain-English rewrite of a policy, an agenda for a team meeting. Watch-out: plan details such as ads, limits and memory change often, so keep any internal guidance generic: "use only for tasks with no patient detail".
5. Claude Free: careful drafting with limited use
Claude's free plan includes Projects, up to five of them, where you can store instructions and reference documents. Anthropic's pricing page describes free usage as limited every five hours and every week, and how fast you reach the limit depends on the model and the length of your chats, so a long document set may run out partway through the day.
Data terms. Like ChatGPT, the consumer plan has a privacy setting, called Model Improvement, that decides whether your chats help improve Claude. Anthropic's BAA article covers commercial services such as its API and Enterprise plans once HIPAA settings are switched on, and sends readers on consumer plans such as Free, Pro and Max to a separate consumer article. Treat Claude Free as a no-patient-data tool.
When it suits. Rewriting a clinic policy, drafting a complaint-response template, summarising a public guideline you paste in. Watch-out: a Project is only a place to keep instructions. Putting anything patient-linked in it carries the same problem as putting it in a chat.
6. Gemini free: strong on documents you already hold
Google's Gemini app is free with a personal Google account. Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM) lets the standard free tier hold up to 100 notebooks with 50 sources each, under usage limits Google labels "subject to change", which is enough to ask questions across a stack of policy documents or public guidance.
Data terms. A personal Google account is a consumer service. Google's Gemini Apps privacy hub says that with the Keep Activity setting on, Google uses your activity to improve its services, including training generative AI models, and a subset of chats is read by human reviewers and kept for up to three years. With Keep Activity off, chats are still held for 72 hours. Gemini Notebook's plans page says personal-account data is not used to train it unless you send feedback. None of that is a healthcare agreement. Google's paid workspace offering has different terms for business content, and that route is the one to investigate for patient information. On the free consumer app, assume no patient information.
When it suits. Questions across your own staff handbook and public guidance. Watch-out: uploading a staff handbook with named individuals still puts personal data into a consumer service.
All six side by side
| Tier | Main limit | Patient information? |
|---|---|---|
| Heidi free | No sharing, coding or EHR integration; smaller weekly agent allowance | Only after reading the compliance page and confirming the agreement for your plan |
| Carepatron free | 100 appointments, 1GB, 1M AI tokens, 100 email sends a month per user | Ask for the BAA in writing first |
| ChatGPT for Clinicians | Verified individual US clinicians only; no image generation | Only after a BAA is signed under Settings > Agreements by someone entitled to sign |
| ChatGPT Free | Three file uploads a day; five files per project; consumer terms | No |
| Claude Free | Usage limited every five hours and every week; five projects | No |
| Gemini free | 50 sources per notebook in Gemini Notebook; usage limits subject to change | No |
A worked choice for a four-clinician physiotherapy practice
Take a physiotherapy practice with four clinicians, one receptionist and an owner who wants to spend nothing on AI this quarter. This is an illustration, and the numbers are invented.
The owner lists what takes time: clinical notes (about 12 minutes a patient, 60 patients a week across the team), the monthly newsletter (two hours), exercise handout wording (an hour a week), the staff rota (an hour), and complaint replies (occasional).
With no patient data: the newsletter, handouts, rota notes and complaint-reply templates go to a free chatbot. That removes roughly four hours a month with no privacy question. With patient data: clinical notes are where the time is, 60 notes at 12 minutes is 12 hours a week. If a scribe cut each note to 6 minutes, that would be six hours a week saved across the team, but only a tool with the right agreement counts, so the owner asks Heidi and Carepatron for their agreements in writing, comparing what each provides on its free plan. If neither offers it free, the cost of a paid scribe is set against six hours of clinician time a week. The free tools have done their job: they showed the owner which task pays for a paid plan. For that comparison see what small clinics pay for an AI scribe.
A sample scribe draft and what you would fix
Free scribes produce a first draft that reads well and still needs a clinician's eye. The example below is illustrative and uses an invented consultation, so it carries no patient detail.
Input (spoken, summarised): Patient reports three weeks of right knee pain on stairs, worse after sitting. No locking. Mild swelling. Advised strengthening exercises, review in two weeks.A typical draft: "Subjective: 3-week history of right knee pain, aggravated by stair climbing and prolonged sitting. No mechanical symptoms. Objective: mild effusion noted. Plan: quadriceps strengthening programme, review in 2 weeks." What you would fix: the word "effusion" is a clinical finding the clinician only said was "mild swelling", so the scribe has upgraded a patient-reported note into an examination finding. Leave out any statement you did not make or observe. The fix is one line in the template ("do not add findings I did not state") and a habit of reading every note before filing it.
When a free plan runs out mid-week
Limits show up at the worst moment, so plan for them. An owner whose clinicians finish notes at 5pm will see the limit when five people try to use a shared allowance at once. Three habits help. First, check how the limit is counted: transcription minutes, appointments or tokens. Carepatron's free plan, for example, counts appointments and AI credits, while Heidi's page describes unlimited transcription with a smaller weekly agent allowance. Second, write down what happens when a limit is hit, which should be "finish the note by hand", not "paste the transcript into a consumer chatbot". Third, set a date to review: if a clinician has hit the free limit three weeks running, the tool has proved its value and it is time to price a paid plan.
Five checks before a clinician uses any free tool
- Read the data page for the exact plan. Free and paid plans of the same product can have different terms.
- Find the training setting and note whether it is off by default, off after you change it, or not offered.
- Ask for the agreement in writing if patient information is involved. A web page that says "HIPAA compliant" is not a signed BAA.
- Check where the data lives and who can see it. A solo account means no practice oversight, and when the clinician leaves, the notes may leave with them.
- Tell patients. Recording consultations needs a clear explanation and, in many settings, consent. See the sample wording below.
"I use a note-taking tool that records this appointment and drafts my notes. The recording is used only to write the notes, and I check them before they go in your record. You can ask me not to use it, and that will not affect your care."Adapt that wording to your rules and have your own adviser look at it, because disclosure requirements differ between settings.
A one-page scorecard to fill in per tool
Print this table once per tool and fill it in before anyone uses the tool with a patient. The entries here are an illustrative example for a free scribe, not a verdict on any product.
| Question | Answer for this tool | Source seen |
|---|---|---|
| Plan name and date checked | Free plan, checked on the day | Vendor pricing page |
| Agreement offered for health data on this plan? | Not stated on the page; email support | Support reply saved to the shared drive |
| Chats or audio used for training? | Setting found, switched off | Screenshot of settings, no patient data visible |
| Where is data kept and for how long? | Audio deleted after notes generated, per vendor | Vendor privacy page |
| Who in the practice can see usage? | Nobody; personal account | Observation |
| Decision | No patient data until paid plan with agreement | Owner, signed and dated |
What goes wrong with free tiers in practice
A clinician who uses a free scribe quietly, without telling the practice manager, means the practice cannot answer when a patient asks what happens to the recording. A receptionist pastes a patient's appointment history into a chatbot to draft a reminder, which breaches the rule even though the intent was harmless. A free plan hits its weekly cap in the middle of the week and the clinician reverts to a consumer chatbot to finish notes. The fix for all three is the same: a written approved-tools list, a named owner for it, and a paid plan budgeted for the task that really needs one. The tutorial on building a staff policy question-and-answer assistant shows one way to keep that list in front of staff.
Free no-patient-data jobs that still save time
- Plain-English versions of consent and aftercare leaflets, reviewed by a clinician before use.
- Job adverts, interview question sets and onboarding checklists for new staff.
- Rewording a complaint reply so it is calm and factual, with the specifics typed in afterwards.
- Social posts and website text; see ten admin tasks a small clinic can hand to AI for the rest.
If you would rather work out which of your tasks sit in which column, that mapping is part of my AI implementation consultation.
Free AI and patient data: the follow-up questions
Can I paste patient information into the free version of ChatGPT?
No. A free consumer plan has no business agreement covering patient information, and you are relying on a setting rather than a contract. Use it for tasks with no patient detail, or use a tool with the right agreement in place.
What is a BAA and who needs one?
A business associate agreement is a contract in which a vendor handling protected health information on your behalf agrees to safeguards. A US-regulated provider needs one before sharing that information with a vendor. Outside the US, the equivalent is a processor contract under data-protection law.
Is a free AI scribe safe for consultations?
It can be, if the vendor's terms cover clinical data, you have a data-processing or business associate agreement where your rules require one, and patients are told. Read the terms for the specific free plan, because free tiers sometimes differ from paid ones.
Do free tiers train on my chats?
It depends on the vendor and the plan. Consumer plans commonly have a setting for whether chats are used to improve models, and business plans are usually off by default. Check the current setting on the vendor's own page before you rely on it.
Further reads
- Is an AI Scribe Worth It for a Small Private Clinic? — Whether a scribe pays back in a small clinic.
- AI Scribe for GPs: Costs, Free Tiers and the NHS Pilot Limit — Free and paid scribe costs for GP practices.
- AI Scribe for an NHS Practice: Registry, DTAC and DPIA Checklist — A registry and assessment checklist for scribes.
- AI Tools for Physiotherapy Clinics: What Each One Actually Does — What each physiotherapy AI tool does.
- AI Receptionist for Therapists: Intake, Waitlist and Crisis Rules — Intake rules when clients may be vulnerable.
- Best AI for Healthcare Providers: What to Buy First by Pain Point — A buying order for a small practice: price your missed calls, late notes and denied claims, then pick the phone agent, scribe or claim check.
- Best AI for Medical Practices: Eight Tool Types and Who Each Suits — Eight types of AI tool for a medical practice, what each does, the practice it suits, and the checks to run before buying.
- AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.
Sources: Heidi pricing page, HIPAA compliance page and privacy policy; Carepatron pricing page; OpenAI help-centre article on ChatGPT for Clinicians and its announcement post; ChatGPT file uploads FAQ and data controls FAQ; Claude pricing page and Anthropic privacy centre; Gemini Apps privacy hub and Gemini Notebook plans page (all checked November 2026). Plans change often; check each vendor's current page.