What are the alternatives to Abridge?

Why clinics look beyond Abridge

Abridge is built for large health systems. It drafts a structured note for review at the end of the visit, codes ICD-10 and HCC within the visit and calculates the E/M level. The reason to look further is rarely the note. It is the rest of the day. Abridge's own pages list no front desk, no online booking and no payments, and its price is not published.

Why Wai is the alternative to start with

A scribe writes the note. Wai runs the clinic. From one consultation, in the room or on video, Wai drafts the note, the referral and clinic letters, prescriptions, result explanations, the coding and cited answers for the clinician to sign.

The front desk on the same record. Calls, email, web forms and WhatsApp land in one thread per patient with replies drafted for approval. Patients request appointments through links that read each doctor's calendar, cancellations backfill from the waitlist, and deposits and invoices run through the clinic's own Stripe.

Every AI action that affects a patient is drafted for a person to review and approve. The clinician signs the note, the letter and the codes, and the front desk approves each reply before it goes.

The evidence behind Wai's method

The note is one part of the day the evidence measures. In a randomised trial of 238 outpatient physicians across 14 specialties at UCLA Health, the ambient scribe with a significant effect cut the time spent writing each note by about 41 seconds, against 18 seconds in usual care.¹ At The Permanente Medical Group, 3,442 physicians used an ambient scribe across 303,266 encounters in its first 10 weeks, and reported more personal conversations with patients and less clerical work after hours.² Wai is built on that finding, so it takes on the letters, the replies, the booking and the follow-up as well as the note.

A draft stays a draft until a person signs it. Article 14 of the EU AI Act requires high-risk AI systems to be designed so that people can oversee them effectively,³ and in the UK the MHRA and NHS England publish guidance on ambient voice technology in health and care.⁴⁵ Wai holds every draft until the doctor signs it, and every reply until a person at the clinic sends it.

The patient's own language. In a systematic review of 33 studies, 76% found at least one outcome better when patient and physician shared a language other than English.⁶ Wai works in 60 languages, so the consultation can happen in the patient's own and the signed note is still written for the record.

Measured in a working clinic. At one London clinic on Wai, every clinician has 15 hours a week back, as published in the customer story.⁷

Moving from Abridge to Wai

Start with one clinician, alongside what you use today. Request a demo and bring one real consultation. In 15 minutes you see the note, the letter and the codes it produces, on your own workflow.

Nothing has to be switched off on the first day. Wai connects to Google, Outlook and Apple calendars, and signed notes and letters export to the record you already keep, so Abridge can run in parallel while you compare. The guide to switching scribe without losing records covers the order of steps.

Then a 90 day pilot shaped around your team, which ends with 3 numbers from your own clinic, revenue, hours saved and patients cared for. The decision is then made on your data, not ours.

What it costs

Wai publishes its prices. Clinician Plus is $550 a clinician a month, with bespoke templates, a records sync and a larger allowance, and Clinician is $350, with the note, letters, coding and cited answers from every consultation. Admin, the front desk, is priced per location after a demo.

Each alternative's published price, as its own page showed it on 16 October 2026, is in the first row of the table with its source. Set the seat against what it replaces. An hour of a clinician's evening, a letter that waits a day, a call that goes to voicemail and a patient who books elsewhere each cost more than the line on the invoice, which is why the comparison worth making is the whole day, not the note.

Frequently asked questions