Elation Health vs ModMed (2026)
Two specialty positions rather than two feature sets, and neither is trying to win the other's customer. ModMed sells eleven specialty specific record systems with protocol libraries built for dermatology, ophthalmology, orthopaedics and gastroenterology, and its scribe inherits that depth. Elation sells one platform for independent primary care and holds 2026 Best in KLAS in the one to ten physician category. Practices almost never shortlist both. Where the comparison earns its keep is governance, and it splits. Elation publishes the full text of its business associate agreement at a public URL, which is the strongest posture in this pair and one of the strongest in the index. ModMed holds the better external AI credential, having certified its record system to the decision support intervention criterion with Scribe named as the technology central to it. Neither publishes an accuracy figure or a model version for its scribe. On the other two they now differ: Elation states it maintains SOC 2 compliance and names Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and Amazon as its AI providers, where ModMed publishes no attestation of its own and names no model layer.
- The business associate agreement is published in full at a public URL, so the terms are readable before a sales process rather than after, and the AI is included at no extra cost with the subscription.
- Scope is narrow and honestly stated: independent primary care, with 2026 Best in KLAS recognition in the one to ten physician small practice category, and no claim to enterprise or broad specialty coverage.
- Oversight is described per product rather than as a blanket policy, with Actions stated to draft rather than send, and Smart Coding shifting the biller from building a claim to confirming a suggestion.
- Specialty depth is the entire proposition and it is substantiated: software for eleven medical specialties with named specialty products and protocol libraries, against a platform built for primary care only.
- A concrete and checkable training data provenance claim, that Scribe was trained on de identified clinical data sampled from more than 750 million patient encounters and developed with on staff specialty physicians.
- An externally audited AI governance credential rather than a self published one. ModMed certified its record system to the decision support intervention criterion in January 2025 and states that Scribe is the technology central to that certification.
This comparison is published by AI Health Index, an independent research platform that compares healthcare AI vendors objectively. Elation Health and ModMed 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 | Elation Health | ModMed |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Ambient Scribes | Ambient Scribes |
| Founded | 2010 | 2010 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California | Boca Raton, Florida, United States |
| Website | elationhealth.com | modmed.com |
Side by Side
Each record in one paragraph
Written to be quoted whole. Each paragraph states what the AI Health Index verified about the vendor, with the caveats attached. Generated from this pair’s live capability grades, so it moves when a grade moves.
The AI Health Index awards Elation Health its top capability grade on HIPAA and BAA Posture, EHR and Interoperability Depth and Setting and Specialty Coverage. Set against ModMed, Elation Health grades higher on several axes, including Model and Technology Transparency, Model Supply Chain Disclosure and AI Safety and PHI Stewardship. Grades reflect evidence the AI Health Index could verify at the last review, so a low grade records disclosure the vendor has not published rather than a capability it has been shown to lack.
Source: AI Health Index, August 2026
The AI Health Index awards ModMed its top capability grade on EHR and Interoperability Depth and Setting and Specialty Coverage. Set against Elation Health, ModMed grades higher on AI Governance and Bias Disclosure. Grades reflect evidence the AI Health Index could verify at the last review, so a low grade records disclosure the vendor has not published rather than a capability it has been shown to lack.
Source: AI Health Index, August 2026
Questions buyers ask
Should we choose Elation Health or ModMed?
On the axes where the AI Health Index separates them, Elation Health grades higher on several axes, including Model and Technology Transparency, Model Supply Chain Disclosure and AI Safety and PHI Stewardship, and ModMed grades higher on AI Governance and Bias Disclosure. Elation Health leads on the greater share of scored axes, but the split means the decision turns on which constraint is binding rather than on an overall winner.
Where do Elation Health and ModMed differ most?
The widest separation the AI Health Index records between Elation Health and ModMed is on HIPAA and BAA Posture, where Elation Health grades A and ModMed grades C. That axis sits in the Regulatory and Compliance group, so it should carry the most weight for a buyer whose binding constraint is where regulatory exposure sits and who carries it.
Where do Elation Health and ModMed grade the same?
The AI Health Index grades Elation Health and ModMed the same on several axes, including AI Centrality, Autonomy and Oversight Model and Clinical and Operational Evidence. Neither holds an advantage the index can evidence on those axes, so they should not carry weight in a selection between these two.
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.
An earlier version of this comparison said neither vendor publishes an attestation, that Elation publishes no position on whether customer data trains its models, and that its automated claim lane carries no published confidence threshold. Elation's AI data use policy and help centre contradict all three. Corrected 15 September 2026.
Neither vendor publishes an accuracy figure, a model version or an evaluation method for its scribe. ModMed publishes no HIPAA statement or business associate terms of its own, where Elation publishes its agreement in full.
Elation's AI data use policy states that it maintains SOC 2 compliance, names Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and Amazon as its AI providers, and states that those providers do not train on customer inputs or outputs. The report type, period and scope of the SOC 2 are not stated and no retrievable report was found, no mapping of provider to feature is published, and nothing published says whether Elation itself uses content to improve its own features or how long audio and transcripts persist.
Its automated claim lane routes on a threshold the practice sets, stated that way on the billing solution page, the fast lane product page and the launch announcement, with the help centre giving 90 percent for multi line claims based on the practice's own history and clean scrubbing for single line ones. Ask whether that figure is a changeable default. Nothing published describes how a touchless claim found wrong afterwards is corrected or how the audit trail marks it.
Both vendors are graded C on AI centrality by the same rule: the purchase is a record system and the AI is a layer on it, which describes the mechanism rather than the quality of the tools.