Abridge vs Heidi Health (2026)
The two run on different maps. Abridge is the US enterprise platform, with Best in KLAS for Ambient AI in 2025 and 2026, a Kaiser Permanente evaluation published in NEJM AI, native Epic depth, and Linked Evidence tracing every sentence of a note back to the source audio. Heidi works for breadth, reporting around 2.8 million visits a week in 110 languages from 190 countries, publishing its prices from a free tier, and expanding into cited clinical questions through Heidi Evidence. Heidi's EHR integration comes with its Teams plan, priced on request, and its HIPAA page makes a business associate agreement available to every covered entity it works with. If your failure mode is auditable evidence and structured Epic workflow in a US health system, start with Abridge. If it is languages, geographies or a price you can see before a sales call, start with Heidi.
- The evidence comes from live care, with Kaiser Permanente's peer reviewed evaluation and Best in KLAS awards in 2025 and 2026, where Heidi's published research uses simulated visits and synthetic speech.
- Structured workflow comes built in, with native embedding across Epic Haiku, Canto and Hyperdrive, bidirectional sync, structured orders and real time prior authorization.
- Verification and assurance are public. Linked Evidence ties each sentence to the source audio, and the trust center lists SOC 2 Type 2 and a subprocessor list that names OpenAI.
- Heidi reports around 2.8 million visits a week in 110 languages from 190 countries, with compliance pages for HIPAA, Australia and New Zealand, Canada, the UK and GDPR.
- The price is published, from a free tier to Clinician at $110 per user a month billed annually or $150 monthly, where Abridge publishes no price and offers no individual plan.
- The platform reaches past documentation. Heidi Evidence answers clinical questions with citations from BMJ Group content, and Heidi Comms coordinates patient calls, bookings and follow ups.
This comparison is published by AI Health Index, an independent research platform that compares healthcare AI vendors objectively. Abridge and Heidi Health are each graded against the same capability taxonomy, from each vendor's own public materials and the regulatory record, under the AI Health Index verification standard. No vendor pays for placement, and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Plain facts
| Fact | Abridge | Heidi Health |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Ambient Scribes | Ambient Scribes |
| Founded | 2018 | Not recorded |
| Headquarters | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | Melbourne, Australia |
| Website | abridge.com | heidihealth.com |
Side by Side
Select any grade to read the note behind it.
Each vendor in one paragraph
Written to be quoted whole. Each paragraph opens the AI Health Index profile of the vendor: what the product is, who buys it and what it does.
Abridge is an enterprise ambient AI platform that turns the clinician patient conversation into a structured, billable note inside the EHR, sold to health systems rather than to individual clinicians. It partners with more than 300 health systems, including Kaiser Permanente, Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Duke Health, Memorial Sloan Kettering, Northwell, UPMC, Sutter Health and NYU Langone, and won the KLAS Research award for Ambient AI in 2025 and 2026.
Source: AI Health Index, July 2026
Heidi is a global ambient AI scribe that generates structured clinical notes from the patient encounter. It reports more than 175 million patient interactions supported across more than 190 countries, and solutions are published for family medicine, specialists, nurses, mental health, allied health, dentists, veterinarians and trainees.
Source: AI Health Index, July 2026
Questions buyers ask
How do Abridge and Heidi Health work with the EHR?
For Abridge, the integration is embedded in Epic Haiku and Hyperdrive, so recording, review and the finished note stay in the Epic workflow with no copy and paste step and no parallel interface. The February 2024 Epic announcement described the path as running from recording conversations in Haiku to embedding generated notes in the patient chart in Hyperdrive.
With Heidi Health, the Teams integrations reach the main hospital and ambulatory systems. For Epic, Heidi describes ambient documentation, structured writeback and clinical task automation across Hyperspace, Hyperdrive and Haiku. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified July 22, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How are Abridge and Heidi Health priced and sold?
Abridge reaches its 300+ health systems through institutional contracts rather than individual clinician signup, and there is no self serve path. The trust center lists a master services agreement among its legal documents, held behind an access request alongside the security documentation.
For Heidi Health, a Max seat carries five times the usage allowance of a Standard seat for agents and Routines, and costs $299 per user per month billed annually. Scribing and evidence questions never draw on that allowance, and Heidi says it never charges overages. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified July 22, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How do Abridge and Heidi Health handle patient data?
With Abridge, the OpenAI listing indicates that content derived from the encounter reaches a third party model provider.
In Heidi Health's case, data is never used for secondary purposes such as model training or commercialization, and clinical data is never shared or sold. Identifiable details are removed from transcripts and notes and processed separately from the rest. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified July 22, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Which settings and specialties do Abridge and Heidi Health cover?
The clinicians platform page says Abridge is used at over 40 specialties, with a structured, specialty specific note produced for each visit.
With Heidi Health, the company reports around 2.8 million patient visits a week in 110 languages from 190 countries, and states coverage of more than 200 specialties. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified July 22, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Related comparisons
Other published head to head assessments involving these vendors or their closest peers.
Volume figures for both vendors are vendor published, including Heidi's weekly visit count and Abridge's more than 300 health systems. Heidi's published evidence is three medRxiv preprints by its own research team using simulated visits or synthetic speech. Heidi restructured its pricing in February 2026, and Abridge publishes no price.