Nourish Family Nutrition & Therapy Recovers $10,000 in Lost Clinical Time Using Heidi’s AI Medical Scribe

In just 12 weeks after implementing Heidi in their clinic, Nourish Family Nutrition saved 6,064 minutes in documentation time and achieved a 5x ROI on setup costs

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With a dedicated team of 28 specialized Registered Dietician Nutritionists and Psychotherapists, Nourish Family Nutrition & Therapy is committed to creating personalized nutrition plans that yield sustainable results. 

The clinic offers a variety of nutrition and therapy services by telehealth to individuals, families, and businesses throughout the United States.

While Nourish Family Nutrition had experienced strong growth and positive feedback, several administrative challenges were making the expansion of their unique model of care challenging. 

In particular, clinicians had crammed schedules with limited time for writing notes. There was variation in the quality of internal documentation, with some notes lacking sufficient information for insurance purposes. Plus, clients had expressed that practitioners were sometimes preoccupied with typing during sessions.

In an attempt to address these issues, Nourish Family Nutrition conducted a 12-week trial with Heidi’s AI Medical Scribe in mid-2024.

During the trial, the team experienced a dramatic reduction in administrative burden, saving 6,064 minutes in documentation time across 28 clinicians. Staff also noted improvements in the quality of care delivered and overall patient experience.

A full overview of the results from the trial is presented in this article. Or, you can download a 1-page summary of the case study by clicking the button below.

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For enquiries about clinic-level implementation of Heidi, please contact our sales team today. 

About Heidi

Heidi is an AI medical scribe powered by ambient listening technology.

While sitting in on a patient encounter (eg., clinic appointments, intake assessments, telehealth sessions, and home visits), Heidi records and analyzes the conversation between clinician and patient.

Once the appointment is finished, the practitioner can instruct Heidi to instantly generate editable clinical documents utilizing the data from the appointment.

These might include things like:

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

Then, all that’s left is for the clinician to review the note and add it to the EHR.

Heidi is compatible with desktop computers, notebooks, tablets, and smartphones. The AI medical scribe works seamlessly with both in-person and telehealth sessions.

Because Heidi is compliant with region-specific privacy and data security regulations across the globe, it can be used in all practice settings internationally.

Challenges Pre-Implementation

Before implementing Heidi, there were 4 primary administration-related challenges faced by Nourish Family Nutrition & Therapy:

1. Crammed schedules with blocked time for clinical documentation. The only reliable way for clinicians to have documentation time available during business hours was to quarantine blocks of client-free time. This reduced billable hours and placed clinicians under stress when competing priorities encroached on their admin time.

2. Concern that notes lacked sufficient detail for insurance purposes. Nourish Family Nutrition prides itself on offering affordable clinical support by working with most insurers. However, at times, documentation lacking in detail would result in claims denials.

3. Wide variation in the quality of internal notes. Due to its rapid growth and remote workforce, Nourish had struggled to achieve team-wide standardization in high-quality documentation processes.  

4. In-session typing impacting client engagement. Feedback from clients of Nourish Family Nutrition & Therapy was overwhelmingly positive. However, some clients felt practitioners were often preoccupied with typing, which affected their engagement during sessions.

Problems pre-Heidi:

• Crammed schedules with blocked time for note/document generation
• Concern that notes lacked sufficient information for insurance purposes
• Wide variation in the quality of internal notes
• Clients felt that practitioners were often preoccupied with typing, which affected their engagement during sessions

Key Outcomes

Within just 12 weeks, Heidi enabled the 28 clinicians at Nourish Family Nutrition & Therapy to:

• Save 6,064 minutes (100 hours) on documentation
• Recoup $10,000 in productive clinical time
• Achieve a 500% ROI on implementation costs
• Produce team-wide standardized notes that meet insurance requirements
• Enhance clinical engagement during sessions

Clinician Feedback

When surveyed, clinicians at Nourish Family Nutrition & Therapy provided feedback that helped illustrate the full benefits of Heidi for both practitioners and clients of the clinic.

Spaced-out, relaxed schedules

A manager at Nourish stated:

“Practitioners feel like they have their whole day back, have a lot more time, and feel less rushed”

Along the same lines, other team members commented that they now have “spaced out, relaxed schedules.” 

This is because with a simple prompt, Heidi will instantly generate a progress note, treatment plan, recipe, referral letter, or any other document immediately after a session.

As a result, clinicians at Nourish Family Nutrition can easily complete the notes after each session before they are due with their next client.

Streamlined meal planning

Most of the clients at Nourish received individualized meal plans as part of their treatment. 

This personalized approach is incredibly useful. However, it is very time-consuming for the clinician to write and adjust each plan from scratch.

A surprising benefit the team found is that the ‘Ask Heidi’ feature can generate recipes, which the practitioner can then adjust and give to the client.

Automated client-centric suggestions

In addition to streamlined meal planning, a dietician at Nourish was impressed with Heidi’s auto-suggested ingredient substitutions based on in-session comments from the client.

An example of this occurred during an appointment where a client mentioned they are price-sensitive after the dietician recommended a salmon recipe.

As a result, when the dietician generated their note, there was already a comment in the patient explainer section suggesting that canned salmon could be used as a cost-effective option if preferred.

The client subsequently thanked the practitioner for being so attentive to their individual needs.

This level of automation is made possible because unlike traditional dictation and transcription software, Heidi has been specially trained to interpret and analyze data from healthcare encounters. 

Enhanced clinician engagement

Without the need to type or write notes during a session, several staff members made comments like:

“I am able to be more present during the sessions.” 

As Heidi quietly processes a session, the staff at Nourish Family Nutrition are free to focus 100% on their client—comfortable in the knowledge that documentation is being looked after.

The peace of mind benefits patients because they feel truly heard and attended to.

For clinicians, it reduces stress levels and improves work satisfaction. 

Freedom from the burden of note-taking can also provide avenues for clinicians to go deeper with clients on complex topics, such as eating disorders. This is because they have the space and awareness to pick up on subtle cues that might otherwise be missed when the practitioner is preoccupied with their notes.

Future Plans

Nourish Family Nutrition’s future plans with Heidi are summed up by this feedback from one of their clinicians—“Heidi enhances what we do, not replaces us.”

The team is excited to continue with their more relaxed schedules, which allow ample time for documentation between each appointment.

They also look forward to experimenting further with the Ask Heidi feature, which has already dramatically reduced the time needed to create custom diet plans for each client.

Finally, leaders at Nourish are expanding the use of Heidi Team features. In particular, they are generating standardized templates that can be used team-wide for documenting clinical encounters and gathering relevant information for insurance claims.

Heidi is free to try for all clinicians. 

To enquire about clinic-level packages, contact our sales team today.