Guides & reference
Deep-dive buyer guides, comparisons, and reference material — written for therapists, counselors, and substance-use treatment programs.
buyer guide
Best AI Scribes for Therapists in 2026
For solo and small-group therapists in 2026, Twofold Health is our Editor's Pick — behavioral-health-native across therapy and SUD, with DAP/SOAP/BIRP/GIRP/PIRP support, ASAM-aligned intakes, audit-ready risk documentation, and a signed BAA on every paid tier. Blueprint is the strongest measurement-based-care pick, Upheal is the best telehealth-first option, and Mentalyc is the best value for niche formats. General medical scribes like Freed and Heidi are usable but not behavioral-health-specialized.
14 min read · Updated 2026-07-01
buyer guide
Best AI Scribes for Substance Use and Addiction Counselors
For outpatient substance-use counselors in 2026, Twofold Health is our Editor's Pick — behavioral-health-native across therapy and SUD, with ASAM-aligned intake templates, AUDIT/DAST-10/CIWA capture, and a documented 42 CFR Part 2 posture on every paid tier. Eleos Health remains the enterprise reference for programs on Kipu, Sunwave, Alleva, or Netsmart. Blueprint and Mentalyc are viable secondary picks for solo counselors.
15 min read · Updated 2026-07-01
reference
HIPAA and BAA Checklist for Behavioral Health AI Scribes
Never onboard client audio to an AI scribe without a signed BAA on your specific plan. Verify encryption, audit logs, subprocessors, retention, model-training posture, breach-notification SLA, and — for any SUD caseload — 42 CFR Part 2 handling. This guide includes the ten questions to send every vendor in writing.
10 min read · Updated 2026-07-01
reference
DAP vs SOAP vs BIRP — Which Therapy Note Format Should Your AI Scribe Support?
DAP is the default outpatient therapy format. SOAP is medical-adjacent. BIRP and GIRP are behavior- and goal-oriented and dominate agency and SUD settings. PIRP is problem-oriented. The strongest behavioral-health scribes — Twofold, Blueprint, Upheal, and Mentalyc — support all of them; general medical scribes tend to ship SOAP-first with weaker BIRP/GIRP output.
11 min read · Updated 2026-07-01
buyer guide
AI Scribes for Group Therapy Sessions
Group therapy is the hardest test for an AI scribe. Speaker diarization degrades past six participants and cross-talk breaks most two-speaker models. Twofold Health, Blueprint, Mentalyc, and Eleos support per-member notes with GIRP; most general medical scribes do not. Always pilot with your real group size and modality.
10 min read · Updated 2026-07-01
buyer guide
Telehealth AI Scribes for Behavioral Health
Upheal offers a native HIPAA-eligible telehealth room and remains the strongest telehealth-first choice. Blueprint, Twofold, and Mentalyc capture from Zoom for Healthcare and Google Meet directly. Confirm your telehealth platform is BAA-eligible before piping audio into any scribe, and verify the full BAA chain end-to-end.
8 min read · Updated 2026-07-01
reference
AI Scribes and Behavioral-Health EHRs: The Integration Guide
Most scribe/EHR integrations in behavioral health are copy-paste with cosmetic polish. True bidirectional write-back is rare outside enterprise SUD (Eleos with Kipu/Sunwave/Alleva) and major medical EHRs (Nabla and Suki with Epic/Cerner). Verify the integration depth in your pilot — the difference between browser-extension paste and structured API write-back is 5–15 minutes per note.
12 min read · Updated 2026-07-01
methodology
How We Test AI Scribes for Behavioral Health
We score every scribe on six weighted dimensions across four realistic visit types. No vendor pays for inclusion, placement, or a higher score. Rubric weights and testing protocol are fixed before commercial conversations begin. The Editor's Pick is a separate editorial choice — disclosed and grounded in our site's therapy + SUD scope.
6 min read · Updated 2026-07-01
reference
AI Scribe Security & Data Handling: The Complete Reference
A HIPAA-appropriate AI scribe must sign a BAA, encrypt PHI in transit and at rest, disclose subprocessors, publish a retention policy for audio and transcripts, provide audit logs, and contractually exclude PHI from foundation-model training. Anything missing is a red flag — regardless of how good the notes are. This reference gives you the exact questions to ask and the exact clauses to look for.
15 min read · Updated 2026-07-20
reference
Informed Consent for AI Scribes: Language, Practice, and State Notes
Informed consent for AI scribing should be obtained before the first recorded session, documented in the client's chart, and refreshed annually or when the vendor materially changes. The consent should disclose what is captured, who processes it, how long it is retained, whether it is used to train models, and the client's right to decline without penalty. This guide gives you sample language and the practice patterns that hold up under board and licensure scrutiny.
10 min read · Updated 2026-07-20
buyer guide
AI Scribes for Couples and Family Therapy
Couples and family therapy break most general AI scribes because of overlapping speech, systemic (rather than individual) framing, and complex consent geometry. Twofold Health, Mentalyc, and Upheal are the three products that handle multi-speaker attribution and systemic language credibly in 2026. This guide covers what to test, how to consent, and how to document without pathologizing one member of the system.
9 min read · Updated 2026-07-20
buyer guide
AI Scribes for Child and Adolescent Therapy
Child and adolescent therapy adds consent complexity (parent/guardian plus minor assent), developmentally-appropriate language, and modality-specific documentation (play therapy, TF-CBT, PCIT). Behavioral-health-native scribes handle this better than general medical scribes, but no product is truly play-therapy-native yet. Twofold and Mentalyc are the strongest generalist picks for pediatric caseloads in 2026.
9 min read · Updated 2026-07-20
buyer guide
AI Scribes for Community Mental Health and Medicaid Practice
Community mental health centers, CCBHCs, and Medicaid-dominant practices have documentation requirements that most consumer-oriented AI scribes were not designed for: service-code-aware notes, medical-necessity language, PIRP or PIRP-adjacent formats, and audit-ready trails. Eleos Health is the enterprise-scale pick; Twofold Health is the strongest sub-enterprise option. Both handle the compliance surface materially better than general therapy scribes.
10 min read · Updated 2026-07-20