Clinicians in smaller practices carry documentation home. They prep before patients arrive, type during conversations with patients (dividing their attention), deliver treatment, then still have to complete assessments after dinner.

Randi Spence lived this reality for months after losing two therapists. Her patient load climbed while she protected new graduates from the overwhelm.

Two weeks after working with her new AI scribe to take notes, she was finally back at the dinner table with her family.

When two of Randi’s staff clinicians left her practice late last year, maintaining quality care came with sacrificing her personal time.

"I was taking all the paperwork home and using my personal time to finish it," Randi explains. Burnout was looming.

When her practice organization offered a webinar on piloting AI scribes, she joined immediately, hoping it would reduce one of the main components of her workload.

Building Confidence Through Simple Steps

To ease into the AI scribe implementation, Randi started with 2-minute check-ins during routine follow-up visits. She purchased a lapel microphone for clear audio capture and recorded brief conversations covering subjective symptoms and clinical assessment.

After stopping the recording, the AI generated a draft SOAP note within her EMR system. This low-stakes testing gave both Randi and her patients time to adjust.

She established recording windows to control costs:

Patient Transparency Drives Acceptance

Randi's practice serves diverse age groups, and she worried older patients might resist her use of AI tools.

But when she explained the technology's purpose upfront, she found many had the opposite reaction. Some patients didn't even know about the documentation burden clinicians carry.

Randi verbally announces when recording starts and stops. This explicit control gives patients confidence their conversations aren't captured continuously or without their permission.

Two Weeks to Balance

The quality of Randi’s documentation improved even as the time she spent on it decreased. The AI captured details she would have missed, particularly during physical therapy sessions when her hands were occupied with treatment.

"It's giving us our time back to program, to actually be present, to mentor, to run the business," she says. "It allows us to be better clinicians."

For practices losing talent to burnout, Randi now has a recruiting advantage: "Our PTs don't go home doing notes because we have this technology helping them out."

Read the full implementation guide to reduce documentation here.

Practice Independence works best when independent practice owners connect face-to-face.

We're organizing community dinners in cities across the country—small groups of clinic owners sharing what's working, what's not, and how they're solving the problems everyone faces.

Option 1: Want to host or attend a dinner in your city? Reply to this email with your location, and we'll make it happen.

Option 2: These conversations matter. Let's get them started.

Thanks for joining us for another edition of Practice Independence — we’ll see you in 2 weeks!

Take care, Indie

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