Berries and Heidi Health are both AI scribes that turn a recorded or dictated session into a draft clinical note, but they're built for different scopes of practice. Heidi is a general medical scribe used across a wide range of specialties, while Berries is built exclusively for mental health professionals. If you're choosing between them, the real question is how much of your therapy documentation workflow each tool understands out of the box.

Key Takeaways

• Ambient AI scribes are gaining an evidence base: a 2024 Kaiser Permanente evaluation in NEJM Catalyst linked scribe use to less documentation time and more personal patient interactions, though mental health specific data is still limited.

• In practice, the deciding factors are note formats, treatment plan support, input options, and how notes get into your EMR, not just transcription accuracy.

• Whichever tool you choose, reviewing every AI draft and documenting client consent remain part of your professional and ethical responsibility.

What Is Berries?

Berries is an AI scribe built exclusively for mental health professionals, including therapists, counselors, LCSWs, psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychiatric nurse practitioners. It generates clinical notes, treatment plans, optional ICD-10 suggestions, and client follow-up letters in seconds, across private practice, group practice, community mental health, and telehealth.

Berries supports the whole session cycle: session prep before, capture during, and a note, treatment plan, and client follow-up email after, which helps keep the golden thread intact.

What Is Heidi Health?

Heidi Health is a Melbourne, Australia based company founded by clinicians, and its flagship product, Heidi Scribe, is one of the most widely used ambient scribes in medicine. Heidi describes itself as an "AI care partner" serving clinicians across more than 200 specialties and settings.

Heidi's product family now includes Heidi Evidence (cited clinical reference), Heidi Dictate, Heidi Forms, and Heidi Tasks. Its mental health page says Scribe can turn therapy sessions into structured progress notes, risk assessments, and letters. Here's how the two tools compare in a behavioral health workflow.

How Berries and Heidi Health Compare

Both tools save you time on notes, so the useful comparison is about fit.

Built for which clinicians

Heidi is built to serve a broad range of medicine, from general practice to specialty clinics, with mental health as one of many audiences. That breadth helps if you work in a multidisciplinary setting where colleagues use the same tool.

Berries is built only for mental health. Its defaults, prompts, and outputs assume you're documenting psychotherapy, psychiatric evaluation, or medication management, so you spend less time adapting general medical templates.

Note formats and templates

Heidi offers a large template library called the Template Community, which it describes as hundreds of professionally designed templates customized by specialty and location. Its therapy resources reference SOAP, DAP, and BIRP, and its mental health page shows contributed templates such as PIRP notes.

Berries includes 20+ built-in templates covering every major mental health format, including SOAP, DAP, BIRP, GIRP, PIE, SIRP, intake, and supervision documentation. If your agency requires a specific structure, you can review the differences in our guides to BIRP notes, GIRP notes, and PIE notes, then build or customize your own template in Berries with the template builder.

Treatment plans and documentation continuity

This is where the tools differ most for therapists. Heidi's broader platform drafts care plans and referral letters from a finished note, but its mental health page doesn't describe a dedicated psychotherapy treatment plan workflow.

Berries generates a treatment plan alongside each note and keeps goals, interventions, and progress aligned, which supports golden thread documentation and insurance-ready notes that reflect medical necessity. A medication list builds per client and carries across notes, which helps when you coordinate care with prescribers. If documentation is where your hours disappear, you can try Berries free for your first 20 sessions, then 10 sessions per month, with no credit card required.

Note creation inputs

Heidi supports live ambient capture, dictation through Heidi Dictate, and a desktop app that can capture telehealth audio directly from the call.

Berries accepts live in-person or telehealth sessions, dictation, text-to-note, audio upload, and handwritten note upload, plus an optional headphones mode for telehealth sessions. Multilingual support is included, and handwritten upload helps when a client prefers no recording.

Before and after the session

Heidi prompts you to capture consent and surfaces prior notes, and its Evidence product brings cited clinical reference, including DSM and ICD criteria, into your workflow.

Berries focuses its before and after support on the therapy relationship. Session prep gives you a last-session summary and follow-up points, and the AI chat assistant lets you ask questions about a client's history. After the session, Insights reflects the session back with key takeaways, approaches used, and patterns, and Berries drafts a client follow-up letter you can review and send.

EMR fit

Heidi lists native integrations with a range of EHRs and practice management systems, including Epic, Oracle Cerner, athenahealth, eClinicalWorks, Cliniko, Halaxy, and others. In a large health system already running one of these, that's a real advantage.

Berries works with any EMR through copy-paste, plus PDF export, so it fits whichever system your practice uses today. Berries also has its own EMR launching soon. If you're still choosing, see our roundup of the best EHR for therapists.

Privacy and compliance

Heidi's site lists HIPAA and GDPR compliance, SOC 2 Type II attestation, and ISO 27001 and ISO 42001 certification, along with regional frameworks such as PIPEDA.

Berries is HIPAA and PHIPA compliant and SOC 2 certified, with encryption in transit and at rest. Session recordings aren't stored, and PHI isn't used to train AI models. You can read more in Is Berries HIPAA compliant?, and remember that you still need a business associate agreement, informed consent, and your own review of every note regardless of vendor.

Pricing structure

Heidi's pricing page currently lists three tiers: a Free plan with a weekly usage allowance, a Clinician plan (Standard or Max seats) with a 14-day free trial, and a Teams plan with custom pricing. Check Heidi's pricing page for current rates.

Berries offers a free trial with your first 20 sessions, then 10 sessions per month at no cost, and a Pro plan for unlimited sessions. Students, trainees, and early-career clinicians qualify for special pricing. For a broader view of the market, see how much an AI scribe costs.

Berries vs Heidi Health Feature Comparison

Which Option Is Right for You?

Neither tool is right for everyone, so weigh your setting, note requirements, and who shares your documentation system.

Consider Heidi Health if:

• You work in a multidisciplinary or hospital setting where physicians and allied health colleagues already use Heidi.

• Your organization runs an EHR that Heidi integrates with natively and you want notes to flow in directly.

Consider Berries if:

• Your caseload is psychotherapy, counseling, or psychiatric care and you want mental health formats like BIRP, GIRP, PIE, and SIRP without rebuilding templates.

• You want treatment plans, client follow-up letters, and session prep generated as part of every session.

• You work in private or group practice and want a tool that fits any EMR through copy-paste.

If you're still weighing several tools, our framework for how to evaluate AI tools as a therapist and our roundup of the best AI scribe for mental health professionals can help you compare beyond these two.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Heidi Health a good AI scribe for therapists?

Heidi is a capable, widely used scribe that supports therapy progress notes, risk assessments, and letters. Because it's built for many specialties, you may need to adapt templates to fit psychotherapy formats and treatment plan requirements.

Does Heidi Health have a free plan?

Yes. Heidi's pricing page lists a Free plan with a weekly usage allowance, alongside paid Clinician and Teams plans. Berries offers 20 free sessions to start, then 10 sessions per month free, with no credit card required.

What's the main difference between Berries and Heidi Health?

Scope. Heidi is a general medical AI scribe with native EHR integrations, while Berries is built only for mental health, with therapy-specific formats, treatment plans, and client follow-up letters.

Do I need client consent to use an AI scribe?

In most settings, yes. Explain how the tool works and how data is protected, then document consent before using it. Berries offers a client consent form you can adapt, and our guide to ethical considerations when using an AI scribe covers the conversation in more depth.

Can I switch from Heidi Health to Berries?

Yes. Because Berries works with any EMR through copy-paste and PDF export, you can start using it without changing your records system. A short trial on a few sessions lets you compare note quality side by side.

This article is for educational purposes and professional development only. It does not constitute clinical supervision or replace professional judgment in therapeutic practice.