"But we don't record the therapy session, we only transcribe it!"
We had a tense encounter a few weeks ago at the ACA conference, and it wasn't with a therapist -- it was with an EHR company that also had a booth there.
The discussion was 100% unprompted by us, to be clear. (We are not the confrontational sort!) The EHR representative came to our booth, noticing our sign that says how we help therapists save time on notes without recording sessions.
And they took issue with that -- this suggestion that perhaps they were somehow recording sessions.
What ensued was a conversation about recording vs. transcription, and how the first is a pre-requisite to the second. In order to have a transcript of a session, a recording of the session had to have taken place. Otherwise, you could literally mute your microphone and magically still get a transcription.
They pushed back, saying that the word "recording" suggested that there were audio files somewhere. And so we explained how we could not speak to their EHR's implementation or how long they held on to the recording, but that there was definitely audio data (or a file) of the session -- in order to then generate a transcript of that session's audio.
It was a confusing conversation, but one thing was made super clear:
THEY WERE AGAINST RECORDING SESSIONS TOO!
So much so that they took umbrage with our suggestion that other tools were recording sessions.
This is why they were upset about it!
Based on our conversation, it sounded like they agree that recording a therapy session is not good, and they wanted to make clear to us that they only transcribe the session... which I think they now know is not possible.
Anyway, this is the confusion that exists right now.
EHRs and AI tools that use words like "ambient" or avoid words like "recording" aren't doing us any favors -- not the client, not the therapist, and apparently, not even for some folks who work directly for the EHRs.
