Doximity Scribe vs Medscape Scribe (2026)
The two free scribes distributed inside clinical media platforms that most United States physicians already use, which makes distribution rather than technology the whole story. Doximity covers every user under a business associate agreement regardless of price, stores no audio and names the processor, which is a stronger data position than many paid products manage. Medscape publishes a specific retention commitment with transcripts deleted after a short stated window and names its review step. Neither integrates with a record system, so in both cases the note comes back to the clinician and goes no further, which is the limitation that defines this tier. If you want a note without procurement, either works. If the note has to reach the chart, neither does, and that is the moment to look at the paid tier.
- Every user is covered by a business associate agreement regardless of paying nothing, which removes the question that gates most free clinical tools.
- No audio is stored or retained, recordings are processed in real time and discarded once the note is generated, and the processor is named.
- The distribution reaches a very large share of United States clinicians through an account most already have, so adoption requires no decision by anyone but the clinician.
- It publishes a specific checkable retention commitment, with transcripts automatically deleted after a stated short window, rather than a general assurance.
- The review step is named rather than implied, with a defined feature for checking the draft before it is used.
- It lives inside a clinical information service clinicians already open daily for other reasons, so the scribe sits beside the reference material rather than in a separate application.
This comparison is published by AI Health Index, an independent research platform that compares healthcare AI vendors objectively. Doximity Scribe and Medscape Scribe 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 | Doximity Scribe | Medscape Scribe |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Ambient Scribes | Ambient Scribes |
| Founded | 2010 | 2024 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States | Newark, New Jersey, United States |
| Website | doximity.com | medscape.com |
Side by Side
Select any grade to read the note behind it.
Product updates
The latest logged changes from each vendor, newest first, each linked to its source.
Doximity Scribe
-
Product / capability
Version 21.4.0 of the Doximity iOS app lets clinicians attach a Doximity Scribe visit note to an Ask conversation and ask follow up questions with that encounter as context.
Source
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.
Doximity Scribe is an ambient documentation tool given away free to every verified United States physician, nurse practitioner, physician assistant and medical student, launched broadly in July 2025 after more than a year of beta testing in which over 10,000 clinicians generated millions of notes.
Source: AI Health Index, August 2026
Medscape Scribe is a free ambient documentation tool launched in October 2024 by Medscape, the clinical information service, available inside the Medscape mobile app and website that a very large share of United States physicians already use daily. It transcribes the visit in real time and produces customizable summaries against widely used templates including SOAP, history and physical, and the problem oriented medical record, and it includes a review feature the company calls Scribecheck.
Source: AI Health Index, August 2026
Questions buyers ask
How are Doximity Scribe and Medscape Scribe priced and sold?
Doximity also provides Scribe, free onboarding assistance and Dialer Pro telemedicine at no cost to free and charitable clinics across the United States, which extends access to settings that generally cannot fund documentation technology at all.
With Medscape Scribe, one cost sits in the terms rather than the pricing copy. The clinician is solely responsible for transferring each summary to the record system within seventy-two hours, after which all data is deleted and the vendor disclaims responsibility for anything lost. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified August 4, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How do Doximity Scribe and Medscape Scribe handle patient data?
In Doximity Scribe's case, a free tool adopted individually sits outside institutional oversight, so notes being private to the user protects the clinician from employer surveillance of their documentation drafts. The same property means an organization cannot audit what the tool produced in its own charts.
For Medscape Scribe, the deletion commitment is broad: the clinician is solely responsible for transferring summaries to the record system within seventy two hours of creation, and Scribe automatically deletes all data after that period. All data reaches the recording and the generated summary, not only the transcript. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified August 4, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Related comparisons
Other published head to head assessments involving these vendors or their closest peers. The full set for this category is on the Ambient Scribes page.
Neither product integrates with a record system, so in both cases the note comes back to the clinician and stops there, which is the shared limitation that defines this tier. Neither publishes an accuracy figure, evaluation methodology, model card or subgroup and accent performance analysis, and neither publishes a security attestation.
Both are free because a pharmaceutical company is paying somewhere in the business, and a buyer should understand that the audience, not the software, is the product being monetized. For any institutional use, establish business associate coverage in writing, since one vendor states it and the other does not publish terms.