AI Scribe for Psychologists: Notes, Reports and Consent Checks

A psychologist should check four things before adopting an AI scribe: what it will see (session notes, reports or both), how clients consent to being recorded, where audio and transcripts are stored and for how long, and whether you can export or delete everything. Write the consent and deletion rules first, then compare tools against them.

Most tutorials about scribes treat "notes" as one job. In psychology there are at least two, and they pull in opposite directions. Session notes are short, frequent and low in risk per document but sensitive in total. Assessment reports are long, rare and formal, and an error in one can change a child's school support or a person's access to a service. A tool that is right for the first can be the wrong one for the second.

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Session notes and assessment reports are different jobs

Decide which job you are buying for. The same scribe can be set up for either, but the checks differ.

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Illustrative case: a solo clinical psychologist sees seven clients a day and writes a DAP note after each. She wants a scribe for those. Twice a month she also writes a 12-page assessment report. For the notes she will record, check and sign. For the reports she decides to use the scribe only on the interview transcript, then write the formulation and recommendations herself. That split, set up front, avoids most later arguments with herself.

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Consent: what a client should actually be told

Consent for recording therapy is not the same as consent for treatment. Clients are sharing very personal material, and some will say yes out of politeness. Good consent has five parts, in plain words.

1. What is captured. Audio, a transcript, or only your own dictated summary.
2. Why. To draft notes you then check, not to assess them or to coach you.
3. Who handles it. The vendor and any sub-processors, in one sentence, with a link to the vendor's privacy page.
4. How long. When audio is deleted, and that the note stays in the record under your retention rules.
5. The choice. They can decline now or later without any effect on their care, and you will switch it off.

Here is wording you can adapt (illustrative, not legal advice).

"I use a secure AI note-taking tool in some sessions. With your permission it records our conversation so it can draft my session note. I read and correct every note before it is saved. The recording is deleted [immediately after the note is created / after X days]. You can say no, or ask me to stop at any point, and it will not affect your care. If you agree, I'll record that in your file."

Freed's help centre offers a similar four-line script to say aloud and encourages getting consent before the recording starts. Whatever wording you use, store the client's answer in the file.

What APA and Ahpra guidance expects

Two documents are worth reading in full, whichever body you answer to. The APA's ethical guidance for AI in health service psychology (created June 2025, updated December 2025) sets out four expectations that map straight onto a scribe: disclose AI use to clients, to other providers involved and to any third party treated as a client, such as a court; obtain informed consent that explains the tool's purpose, how it is used and its benefits and risks; check AI-generated content critically before it goes into the record; and remember that the psychologist, not the tool, stays responsible for final decisions. It also asks you to make sure any tool can be used in line with the data-privacy rules that apply to you.

Ahpra's guidance on meeting professional obligations when using AI in healthcare is more specific about scribes. It says a generative AI scribe will generally need informed consent because it takes in personal data, that transcription software should include an explicit consent step before recording starts, that you should ideally note the client's response in the record, and that you must check the accuracy of any record the tool creates. It also expects you to know how the tool uses data for retraining, where data sits and how it is stored. The two documents agree on the essentials: tell the client, get and record consent, review every output, and understand the data flow before you start. For Ahpra's position in more detail, see what Ahpra expects of psychologists using AI scribes, and for the wider question of whether to tell clients you use AI at all, there is a tutorial on exactly that. Your insurer's position matters as well, so read it before the first recorded session.

Where the audio goes: storage questions with real answers

Ask every vendor the same seven questions and write the answers down.

• Is audio stored after the note is generated? Heidi's patient information page says it does not store any audio, Freed says recordings are kept only until the note and its quality checks are complete and are then deleted automatically, and Jane lets a clinic choose between deleting recordings immediately after a draft is made, after a set number of days, or keeping them. Jane's default for a newly enabled scribe is immediate deletion, and a deleted recording stays in backups for one week before permanent deletion.
• Is the transcript stored, and can you delete it separately from the note?
• Is client content kept to improve the product or train models, and is that on by default? SimplePractice's Note Taker is a useful case: clinicians who switch it on from 17 June 2026 are opted in by default to SimplePractice keeping de-identified transcripts, which it says it uses to refine Note Taker's prompts and workflows rather than to retrain the underlying model. You can opt out per clinician, client or session. That is a reminder that defaults change and that you should look at the setting, not the sales page.
• In which region is the data stored, and can you choose?
• Who are the sub-processors, and will the vendor sign a data-processing or business associate agreement?
• Who inside the vendor can read client content, and under what conditions?
• What happens to everything when you cancel?

A tool that cannot answer these in writing is not ready. For broader checks on any tool that touches client data, questions to ask before buying AI that touches client data goes further than this tutorial can.

The four tools compared on what a psychologist needs

All four are widely used by allied-health and mental-health clinicians. Prices below are USD list prices read from vendor pages in November 2026; confirm before you buy.

How to read it. If you already run on Jane, its scribe is the lowest-friction option and the deletion controls are explicit. If you run on a different practice system and want a separate scribe, Heidi or Freed are the stand-alone choices, and the difference comes down to template depth, price and how each handles your wording. Carepatron is the one to look at if you want everything under one subscription and are willing to move. For a comparison of the practice systems themselves, see practice systems with AI built in.

A filled-in comparison for a solo psychologist

Illustration. A solo psychologist sees 22 clients a week and has about 90 notes a month going into SimplePractice, which she likes. Her priorities, in order: no audio kept once the note is done, notes in her own DAP structure, cost under $80 a month.

Heidi's free plan meets the cost test but she wants custom templates, which Heidi lists under the paid plan at $110 a month billed annually. Jane's scribe is $15 but needs a Jane plan, and she does not want to migrate. Freed's $39 Starter plan caps at 40 notes, below her roughly 90, so she looks at the $79 Core plan. Carepatron's free tier would work financially but needs a move of her records.

Result: she trials Freed's 7-day free trial on ten real notes. Her pass criteria: fewer than one factual error per three notes, no invented risk statements, and the note lands in her DAP headings. If any fail, she tries Heidi's free plan with her own pasted headings before paying. The point is that the cheapest option is not the winner by default; the first one that meets all three criteria is.

What a good session-note prompt looks like

If the tool lets you give it a standing instruction, write one that sets the guardrails psychologists care about.

Draft a DAP note from this therapy session transcript.
- Data: what the client reported and did, in neutral language. Use direct quotes only for risk-relevant statements.
- Assessment: only what the clinician said aloud; do not add formulation, diagnosis or risk ratings.
- Plan: next session date, homework and referrals only if stated.
- If risk content (self-harm, harm to others, abuse) is mentioned, write "RISK DISCUSSED: see clinician" and do not summarise it.
- Never infer anything not in the transcript. Mark gaps with [clinician to complete].

Illustrative output from a good scribe: "Data: Client reported poor sleep for two weeks and said 'I keep rehearsing the meeting'. Completed the thought record in session. Assessment: [clinician to complete]. Plan: continue weekly; thought record homework." What you fix: the Assessment section is intentionally blank, which is what you asked for, and you complete the clinical judgement yourself. If instead the tool had written "client shows symptoms of generalised anxiety", it has overstepped and needs a stricter instruction or a different tool.

Assessment reports: the narrower, safer use

For long reports the useful tasks are bounded. A scribe can produce a clean transcript of the intake interview, a first draft of the developmental or personal history section from that transcript, and a tidied version of your own dictated observations. It should not see raw item responses, protected test content or score sheets unless the test publisher's licence and your regulator allow it. Several publishers restrict how test material is stored and shared, and an upload to a third-party tool may count as sharing.

A practical workflow: record the interview with consent; generate the transcript and a history draft; read both against the recording for the sections that matter; write scores, interpretation and recommendations yourself, then ask a general writing assistant (with identifiers removed) to tighten prose only. The tutorial on what never to paste when writing psychology reports sets out the line in detail.

Four errors to look for when you review a note

• The invented risk statement. "No suicidal ideation reported" appears because the scribe filled a template line, though nobody asked. Fix: require the clinician to complete risk fields manually.
• Attribution slip. The client's partner's behaviour is recorded as the client's. Fix: check pronouns and names in couple or family sessions.
• Tone drift. Neutral language becomes interpretive ("client is avoidant"). Fix: ban interpretive terms in the instruction and review for them.
• Silent omission. A key disclosure in the last five minutes is missing from the note. Fix: skim the transcript's final section for every session in the first month.

Couples, families, groups and supervision

Individual sessions are the easy case. Everything above gets harder with more than one client in the room, and a scribe has no idea who is the client of record.

• Couples and family sessions. Every adult present, and a parent for any child, must agree to the recording. If one person declines, you do not record. Decide in advance which note the content belongs in, because a scribe will happily write one note that mixes two people's disclosures.
• Group therapy. A group note often needs one entry per member. A scribe that cannot separate voices will produce a single blended summary, which is both inaccurate and a confidentiality problem if it ends up in an individual's file. For groups, dictating your own summary is usually safer than recording.
• Supervision and case discussion. Recording a supervision meeting captures other clinicians' clients and your colleague's opinions. Get everyone's agreement and make sure the tool puts these notes in a place client-facing records cannot reach.
• Telehealth. Some tools can join or capture a video call; others listen through the device. Check that the setup does not also record other windows or other participants, and tell the client when a call is being transcribed.

Risk disclosures, duty to report and the scribe

When a client discloses a risk of harm, your professional duties start straight away and do not wait for the draft note. The scribe changes one thing: it creates a written record you then own. Three rules keep that safe.

1. Never let the scribe decide whether something counts as risk. Ask it only to flag the passage, as in the prompt above, and write the risk assessment yourself.
2. Read the transcript passage, not just the summary, before you sign any note that mentions risk. A summary can soften or sharpen wording.
3. Know what the vendor will do if it receives a legal request for the data. Your own file and your own retention rules still apply, and a long-lived recording in a vendor's system is an extra copy that someone could ask for. This is one more reason to prefer immediate deletion of audio.

Retention, access requests and the note as a legal record

Clients can usually ask to see their records. If the transcript and the note are both kept, both may be within scope of a request, depending on where you work and how your regulator treats them. Decide your position before the first recording: keep only the signed note and delete the audio and raw transcript, and say so in the consent wording. Then the answer to "what do you hold about me?" is short and true.

Write down a one-page retention rule that covers four items: audio (delete at once or within days), transcript (delete when the note is signed), signed note (kept for the period your regulator or insurer requires) and exports (where backups live). Review it each time the vendor changes terms, because the SimplePractice default change in June 2026 shows these things move. The related confidentiality checklist for small practices has a version of this rule you can copy.

Before and after: the same fifteen minutes of a session

Illustration of why review matters. The client said: "Work's been awful since the reorganisation. I'm not sleeping, maybe four hours. I snapped at my sister on Sunday and felt terrible, and I haven't been to the gym." The therapist then spent ten minutes on a sleep plan.

A first draft from a scribe: "Client reports work stress following a reorganisation and ongoing insomnia (approx. 4 hours a night), irritability with family, and reduced exercise. Sleep hygiene strategies discussed." What to fix: "insomnia" is a diagnostic word the client did not use, so change it to "sleeping about four hours a night"; "irritability with family" is fine because the client described snapping at her sister, but add the detail for context; "sleep hygiene strategies" is vague, so replace it with the specific plan you agreed. Three edits, about two minutes, and the note is now both accurate and yours.

A quick sum for a three-psychologist practice

Illustration, using the list prices above. Three psychologists each write about 80 notes a month. On Jane's scribe, each opted-in practitioner costs $15, so $45 a month for unlimited notes, on top of whatever Jane plan the practice already pays. On Freed's $79 Core plan it would be $237 a month, and on Heidi's Clinician plan $330 a month billed annually (check whether a Teams price applies at three seats, since Heidi lists Teams as custom). If each psychologist saves even 30 minutes a day over 20 working days, that is 10 hours a month each. The price gap between $45 and $330 is therefore real, but it is small next to the difference between a tool that deletes audio on your terms and one that does not. Compare on consent and exit first, then on price.

A two-week pilot with pass marks

1. Choose one note format and one tool. Do not compare four tools at once.
2. Tell five to ten clients who are comfortable with recording, document consent, and record only those sessions.
3. Measure edit time per note and error count per note. Compare with your usual note time.
4. Check the settings page: deletion policy, training use, region. Screenshot them for your records.
5. On day 14, export notes and delete the test data. If you cannot export or delete, stop.

Pass marks I would use: at least 40 per cent less time per note, no invented risk statements, deletion confirmed in writing. If you want help setting this up for your own practice, that is what my AI implementation consultation covers; get in touch here.

Questions psychologists ask about scribes

Can I use an AI scribe for assessment reports?

A scribe suits session notes better than formal reports. For reports, use it for the interview and history sections if you record them, and keep scores, interpretation and conclusions in your own hands. Never feed raw test items or protected test material into a tool without checking the publisher's terms.

Should the client sign something before I record?

Most professional guidance expects informed consent that covers the tool, what is recorded, who processes it and how long it is kept. A signed or documented consent is safer than a mention in passing. Check your own regulator and insurer, then keep the wording in the client file.

Is it better to dictate or record the session?

Dictating a short summary after the session avoids recording client speech at all, which makes consent and storage simpler. Recording captures more detail but raises the stakes. Many psychologists start with dictation and move to recording only for clients who agree.

Can I keep psychotherapy process notes separate?

Yes, and many do. If you keep a separate set of private process notes, decide in advance whether they ever go through a scribe. The safest default is that they do not, and the tool only sees the notes that sit in the main record.

Further reads

• Can Psychologists Use AI Beyond Session Notes? Seven Admin Jobs — Seven admin jobs beyond session notes.
• Best AI Note Taker for Therapists: Recording or Dictation Style? — Recording or dictation style for note taking.
• AI Note-Taking Tools for Therapists: A Confidentiality Checklist — A broader confidentiality checklist for therapists.
• Can Therapists Use ChatGPT for Session Notes? — Why a general chatbot is not a scribe.
• Telling Patients You Use AI Note-Taking: Consent Wording That Works — Consent wording that clients accept.
• AI Scribe Security: Audio, Retention and BAA Vendor Questions — Security questions to put to any scribe vendor.
• AI Scribe for Medical Practices: Pick by Country and EHR — A practical decision matrix for choosing a clinical scribe by jurisdiction, EHR connection and specialty fit, with a scored pilot.
• AI Scribe for Occupational Therapists: A Buyer's Checklist — Twenty-two questions to put to any AI scribe vendor before an occupational therapist signs, from goal wording to recording deletion and per-clinician cost.
• Heidi Health for Dentists: Setup, Templates and Patient Consent — A step-by-step Heidi setup for a dental practice: the plan to start on, template tweaks, getting notes into the PMS, and patient consent wording.
• ABA Session Notes With AI: From Raw Session Data to a Draft Note — A practice-owner workflow for turning trial data into a draft ABA note: de-identify or use a BAA tool, a prompt, a worked example and sign-off.
• AI Charting for Dietitians: Drafting ADIME Notes With a Review Step — Draft Assessment, Diagnosis, Intervention and Monitoring notes with AI, then check each line before it enters the record.
• AI Medical Scribe for Clinicians: Shared Templates in a Group Practice — Standardise scribe templates across a group practice with a shared core, personal overrides, a sampling audit and one consent script.
• AI Note Generator for Counsellors: Turn Your Own Bullets Into Notes — Type your own session bullets, strip identifiers, and have AI draft the note you then edit and own. Prompts and examples included.
• AI Scribe Consent Form: US Wording and State Recording Laws — Template wording for an AI scribe consent form, a plain map of one-party and all-party recording states, and an opt-out that still gets the patient seen.
• AI Scribe for Audiology: Fitting Notes, Counselling and Consent — Four AI scribes compared for fitting appointments, with filled-in fitting and counselling notes and consent wording for patients who struggle to hear.
• AI Scribe for Optometrists: Exam Notes, Templates and a Test Plan — AI scribes for eye-exam notes compared by how they reach your EHR, with a filled exam template, consent wording and a two-week test plan.
• AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.

Sources: Heidi, Jane, Freed, Carepatron and SimplePractice pricing and help pages (checked November 2026).