5 Questions to Ask Before You Choose an AI Scribe

AI scribes are spreading through veterinary medicine faster than almost any tool I have seen in a decade of tracking veterinary software. Recent market research puts numbers to it: 47% of clinical staff now personally use one, and half of all practices have at least one user on staff.¹ Seven weeks earlier, the best estimates I’d seen put adoption at 20% to 25%. So in under two months it roughly doubled. That’s the kind of curve you usually only see in hindsight.

The pitch is easy to love. Less time typing, more time with the patient, notes that seem to write themselves. What rarely makes the sales slide is everything sitting underneath that note. Before your team signs with anyone, here are five questions worth asking out loud.

1. Where does the recording go, and who can access it?

Every scribe records audio in your exam room and ships it off somewhere to be processed. Ask where that somewhere is, what protects it, and who can see or hear it. Vendor staff. Subcontractors. The AI companies behind the product. These are conversations about your clients and their animals, and you should know exactly who’s on the receiving end.

2. What happens to the audio after the visit?

Some vendors delete the recording the second the note is written. Others keep it forever and feed it to their models. Neither is automatically a dealbreaker, but you need to know which one you’re agreeing to. Ask how long audio is kept, whether it’s used for training, and whether you can opt out.

3. Who owns the note?

This sounds obvious, right up until you read the contract. Get it in writing that the medical record belongs to your practice and not the vendor. That note is part of your legal patient record. Don’t leave ownership up in the air.

4. Can you get your data back out later?

The market is young and still shaking out, and at some point you may want to switch. Ask whether you can export your notes and history in a format you can actually use, on your terms, without a fee or a fight. If the answer is vague, that’s your answer.

5. How does it connect to your PIMS?

This is the one question many people underestimate. Most scribes still leave you manually copying and pasting the finished note into your practice information management system (PIMS). In a recent study, about 15% of scribe users brought up integration as a gap without being asked.1 Find out whether the scribe can write the note straight into your PIMS and pull up patient history on the way in. That connection is where the real time savings hide, and it’s quickly becoming the difference between a note taker and a tool that actually fits with how you work.

More practices are getting real value out of AI scribes every day. But before you fall in love with the demo, make sure you walk into the agreement with eyes open to ensure optimal privacy for your clients and efficiency for your clinic.