AI Beyond Scribing? Can Heidi Health AI Agents Handle Therapists’ Practice Admin?

Please read this first. This post is not legal, ethical, or compliance advice. It is a review of a tool that is available to therapists right now. Before you use any AI tool with client information, check with your own attorney, compliance advisor, licensing board, and professional association.

Most therapists who start looking at AI are looking for help with one thing: their notes.

And that makes sense. Documentation takes time, and nobody goes into private practice because they dreamed of spending their evenings finishing charts.

But notes aren’t the only thing eating up your administrative time.

There are calendars to manage, insurance information to check, prior authorizations to complete, payer portals to navigate, emails to answer, and billing tasks that somehow always seem to find their way onto your to-do list.

That is what caught my attention when I started looking at the newer features from Heidi Health.

Heidi started out as an AI medical scribe. But in late September 2026, the company began rolling out what it calls Heidi II, with AI agents designed to do more than generate notes.

These agents can work with your calendar, fill out forms, interact with web-based payer portals, and move information between systems.

As someone who has worked in medical billing and spent a lot of time working with the administrative side of mental health practices, that’s a much more interesting use of AI to me than simply having another tool write your notes.

So I opened Heidi and asked its assistant what it could actually do for a solo therapy practice using SimplePractice.

Here’s what I found—and more importantly, what I think therapists should consider before giving an AI agent access to their practice.

The short version

Heidi’s new agents can potentially help with daily practice preparation, prior authorization forms, email, calendar tasks, and some limited billing-related administrative work.

There is an important distinction, though.

Heidi is not taking over your practice administration and running everything in the background. It requires your approval before certain actions, including things that involve signing, submitting, deleting, or moving money. I actually see that as a positive.

The bigger question is how much access you’re comfortable giving an AI tool in the first place.

For SimplePractice users in particular, Heidi doesn’t have a direct integration. Instead, it works through the Heidi desktop app and interacts with SimplePractice on your screen.

In other words, if Heidi can see your screen, you need to think carefully about what else is visible. That means your BAA, consent process, screen setup, and internal policies matter just as much as the technology.

What is Heidi Health?

Heidi is an AI medical scribe. It can listen to a session—or work from an uploaded recording—and create a note based on your template.

One thing to keep in mind if you’re a therapist: Heidi wasn’t originally built specifically for mental health.

That doesn’t automatically make it a bad choice. But therapy documentation can be very different from a structured medical visit, and some clinicians have reported needing to edit notes more heavily for narrative therapy sessions.

If you’re primarily looking for an AI scribe specifically for mental health, I’d start by comparing the options rather than assuming the newest feature from an existing AI tool is automatically the best fit.

The newer part of Heidi is the AI agents.

Instead of simply generating information for you, an agent can take a request such as:

“Prep my sessions for Monday.”

It can then work through the steps required to accomplish that task across your calendar, EHR, email, or other web-based systems.

You can also create repeatable workflows, called Routines, and run them on a schedule.

That is where I think Heidi gets interesting for a solo practice.

The value isn’t necessarily that it can do something you couldn’t do yourself.

It’s that it may be able to take a series of small, repetitive administrative steps off your plate.

How does Heidi work with SimplePractice?

This is one of the first questions I would ask if you’re a SimplePractice user.

The answer is a little different than you might expect.

Heidi does not have a direct SimplePractice integration.

Instead, you log into SimplePractice yourself and Heidi works through your screen using its desktop app.

It essentially interacts with SimplePractice the way a person would—reading information, clicking into the appropriate areas, and entering information you’ve approved.

According to Heidi, this can include things like:

• Pasting a completed note into the correct client’s chart
• Checking the client name and other identifying information before entering information
• Reading your calendar
• Setting up sessions
• Looking up client details and appointment information
• Entering approved information into SimplePractice fields

Heidi says it will stop and ask before taking certain actions involving things such as signing notes, deleting records, billing, or claims.

There is also a practical consideration here.

Because this is screen-based rather than a direct integration, Heidi can see what’s on your screen.

That means you need to be intentional about what you have open.

If you’re working with one client’s chart, you don’t want another client’s information sitting in another browser tab where it can be visible to the tool.

That may sound obvious, but when you’re trying to save time, it’s easy to get into the habit of leaving everything open. With an AI agent, I’d be much more deliberate about it.

Want to see how Heidi works for yourself? If you’re curious whether its screen-based approach could save you time in your own practice, you can learn more about Heidi Health

What can Heidi do with your calendar?

This is probably one of the more practical uses I’ve found for the new agents.

You can ask Heidi to prepare for the day ahead.

For example, you could ask it to:

“Prep my sessions for Monday.”

Heidi can read your calendar, set up a Heidi session for each appointment, and prepare information for those sessions.

It can also help with open appointment slots and appointment scheduling or changes.

Heidi also has a task list that can pull tasks from your work and allow you to add your own.

That could be useful for the small things that tend to fall through the cracks:

• Send a progress report
• Follow up on a request
• Check an authorization
• Complete a form
• Respond to an email
• Follow up with a payer

You can ask for a summary of what’s due, what’s overdue, and what’s already been completed.

For a solo therapist, that kind of daily overview may be more useful than another complicated productivity system.

A simple morning routine could look like this:

1. Have Heidi read the day’s calendar and prepare your sessions.
2. Ask it for a list of overdue or time-sensitive tasks.
3. Have it summarize unread email and identify messages that need a response.
4. Review any drafted responses before they’re sent.

That last step is important.

You are still responsible for reviewing the work.

Heidi’s tasks don’t simply run themselves. The agent acts when you tell it to.

That’s a safety feature, but it also means this isn’t the same thing as hiring a human virtual assistant and completely handing off a process.

Can Heidi help with prior authorizations?

This is one of the areas where I think Heidi could potentially save therapists some very tedious administrative time.

If you’ve ever spent an afternoon filling out a prior authorization form, you already know that much of the work is repetitive.

Heidi can work with a form you provide and use information from the client’s profile and your documentation to fill in the appropriate fields.

It can work with PDF, Word, or Excel forms.

If information isn’t available, Heidi says it will identify what’s missing rather than simply making something up.

It can also work with online payer portals.

For example, Heidi can open a web-based portal, locate the client, and fill in the available information.

It stops before submitting the authorization so you can review everything first.

You would still handle your own login and any multi-factor authentication.

And this is where my billing background makes me want to slow down for a minute.

AI should not be deciding medical necessity for you.

Heidi says it won’t invent:

• Medical necessity
• Severity ratings
• Clinical justification
• Treatment rationale

If those things are supported by your documentation, it can help draft the information for you to review.

If they’re not there, it should tell you that it needs your input.

That’s exactly how I would want this to work.

A prior authorization isn’t the place to let AI fill in the blanks with something that sounds clinically appropriate.

If the documentation doesn’t support the request, the answer isn’t to have AI make the documentation sound better.

You still own the clinical content.

And remember that not every outpatient therapy service requires prior authorization. Requirements vary by payer, plan, service, and sometimes state.

If you’re relying on a particular authorization process, verify the requirements with the payer rather than assuming an AI tool knows what your patient’s plan requires.

If prior authorizations are one of those administrative tasks you dread, Heidi is worth a closer look. It can help fill out forms using information you’ve already documented, while still leaving the final review and submission with you. Take a look at Heidi Health

Can Heidi do your billing?

This is where I want to be very clear. No. Heidi is not a medical billing service. And frankly, I don’t think you should expect it to be.

Heidi can assist with some of the administrative pieces surrounding billing, including:

• Looking up authorization information
• Downloading statements from payer portals
• Updating a billing or tracking spreadsheet
• Moving information between applications
• Copying authorization numbers into a tracking system

Those things can save you some clicks. But that’s different from actually managing your billing.

It isn’t going to replace a process for checking:

• Claims
• Payments
• Denials
• Patient balances
• Authorization issues
• Payer follow-up

If you’ve ever worked in medical billing, you know that the individual tasks aren’t necessarily the hard part. It’s making sure someone is consistently looking at the whole picture.

You can automate individual pieces of a billing process and still have a mess if nobody is reviewing the claims and payments every week.

That’s why I recommend having a simple recurring billing review process, even if your billing is mostly automated.

What Heidi won’t do

According to Heidi’s assistant, there are several things the agents are specifically designed not to do.

They won’t:

• Work in banking, payment, tax, or password manager applications
• Type your login credentials
• Submit a claim or authorization without your approval
• Sign a note without your approval
• Delete a record without your approval
• Move money without your approval
• Invent medical necessity, diagnoses, or treatment rationale
• Write to a chart if they can’t confirm the client’s identity
• Follow instructions hidden inside emails, webpages, or documents

And Heidi says that approvals apply to individual actions. If something changes on the screen, the agent may ask for approval again. Again, I consider those limitations a positive thing.

I’d be much more comfortable with an AI tool that says, “Here’s what I prepared. Take a look before I submit it,” than one that quietly makes changes throughout my practice.

The catch is that you actually have to look.

What are other clinicians saying?

I haven’t used Heidi’s scribe during an actual therapy session myself, so I don’t want to pretend I have firsthand experience with something I haven’t personally tested.

Instead, I looked at feedback from other clinicians.

One review compiled feedback from app store reviews and clinician reports. The biggest concern was reliability, with some users reporting problems such as dropped transcripts, freezing, or recordings stopping unexpectedly.

There were also comments about spending more time troubleshooting the tool than the amount of time it saved. Those complaints are worth paying attention to.

At the same time, keep in mind that the review source is a competitor in the AI scribe market, so I would not treat those reports as a scientific assessment of Heidi.

The other important distinction is that the agents are new. There simply isn’t years of user feedback available on the agent functionality yet. That’s why I’d be cautious about making Heidi the backbone of your entire administrative workflow on day one.

Try one task. See how it performs. Then decide whether it deserves more access.

What about HIPAA and PHI?

This is the part I would not skip. Heidi says it offers a BAA to covered entities, hosts U.S. customer data in the United States, and maintains security certifications and controls. It also says that passwords aren’t stored by Heidi because you log into the applications yourself. Those are all useful things to know.

But “HIPAA compliant” isn’t a magic phrase that makes every use of an AI tool appropriate. Your implementation matters. If you’re going to use Heidi with protected health information, I would want the following handled before connecting it to a live practice.

1. Sign the BAA

Don’t assume that because a company offers a BAA, you’re automatically covered. The BAA needs to actually be in place before you put client information into the system.

2. Review your consent process

If you’re recording therapy sessions for AI-assisted documentation, your informed consent process needs to address that. Recording requirements can vary by state, and your professional and ethical obligations matter here too. I would get written consent rather than treating this as something that can be handled casually.

3. Think carefully about psychotherapy notes

Psychotherapy notes have additional protections under HIPAA when they are maintained separately from the medical record. I would not automatically assume that every type of clinical information belongs in an AI tool just because the tool offers a BAA.

4. Understand what happens to your data

Read the current terms and privacy documentation yourself. One third-party review raises questions about the use of de-identified recordings to improve services. Because terms can change, I would not rely on an older review to answer that question for you. Check Heidi’s current terms before making your decision.

5. Remember that Heidi can see your screen

This may be the biggest practical consideration with the SimplePractice setup. If Heidi is working through your screen, it can potentially see whatever is displayed there. That could include another client’s chart, your email, or other information that has nothing to do with the task you’re asking it to perform.

Close what doesn’t need to be open. Don’t give an AI agent access to more information than it needs.

6. Be careful with payer portals

Just because an AI agent technically can work inside a payer portal doesn’t necessarily mean the payer’s terms permit it. Check the portal’s terms before building an automated process around it.

Before you turn on Heidi’s agents, I’d do this

If you decide to try Heidi, don’t start by giving it access to everything. I’d start small.

1. Sign the BAA first.

Don’t connect client information until you’ve handled that piece.

2. Start with one low-risk administrative task.

Calendar preparation is a reasonable place to start. You could also try having it complete one prior authorization form that you would normally fill out yourself.

3. Clean up your screen before you let it work.

Close other client charts, email, financial applications, password managers, and anything else the task doesn’t require.

4. Review every approval.

Check names, dates, member IDs, authorization numbers, and the actual content before you click yes.

5. Give yourself 30 days to evaluate it.

Don’t decide whether Heidi is “worth it” based on the first afternoon. Keep track of what actually saved you time. If a task takes five minutes to review but saves you twenty minutes of repetitive work, that’s useful. If it takes fifteen minutes to fix what the AI did, it probably isn’t.

Who is Heidi a good fit for?

Based on what I found, I think Heidi is most interesting for solo and small-group practices that are already comfortable using AI and want help with repetitive administrative work.

It may be particularly useful if you have:

• A busy calendar
• A steady stream of prior authorizations
• Medicaid or other plans with frequent authorization requirements
• A lot of repetitive administrative forms
• A willingness to review the agent’s work before it is submitted

I would be more cautious if you’re looking for a completely hands-off administrative solution.

Heidi probably isn’t the best fit if:

• You aren’t ready to sign a BAA and update your consent process
• You want a therapy-specific AI scribe
• You want someone—or something—to completely take over your billing
• You don’t want an AI tool seeing your screen
• You aren’t willing to review the work it does

And if you’re not comfortable putting client information into AI at all, you don’t have to. There are plenty of ways to use AI in your business without putting PHI into it.

So, is Heidi worth trying?

I think it could be, but I wouldn’t look at Heidi as an AI replacement for your office manager, biller, or virtual assistant. I’d look at it as a tool that can potentially remove some of the repetitive administrative work from your day.

That’s an important distinction. If Heidi saves you from repeatedly copying authorization information from one screen to another, that’s useful.

If it prepares your calendar and gets your day organized before you start seeing clients, that’s useful. If it can fill out a prior authorization form using information you’ve already documented and then hand it back to you for review, that’s useful.

But you still need a system behind it. You still need to know what should be checked, when it should be checked, and who is responsible for checking it. That’s something I see frequently in mental health billing.

The technology isn’t necessarily the problem. The missing process is. AI can make a good process faster. It can also make a bad process faster.

So I’d start with one repetitive task, measure the time you actually save, and expand from there.

If you want to explore Heidi for yourself, you can learn more about Heidi Health here.

AI can help you do the work faster.

It can’t replace knowing what needs to be done in the first place.

FAQ

One final thought

I’m interested in where tools like Heidi are going because I’ve spent enough time in medical billing to know that a lot of practice administration isn’t difficult—it is just time-consuming and repetitive.

That’s exactly the kind of work AI should be good at.

But I don’t think the goal should be to hand your entire practice over to an AI agent.

The goal should be to identify the pieces of your workflow that are repetitive, predictable, and easy to check—and let technology help with those pieces while you keep control of the decisions that actually matter.

That’s a much more useful way to think about AI in a therapy practice.

Curious about the new Heidi agents? You can learn more about Heidi Health here and decide whether it makes sense for your practice.