the problem with cloud transcription for therapy
HIPAA's business-associate-agreement requirement is the visible blocker. it's also the easy one. the harder problem is that even with a signed BAA, uploading recorded sessions to a third-party server expands the privacy surface in ways most clinicians don't want to defend if a complaint is filed: another party with access logs, another organization that could be breached, another vendor whose terms can change.
the practical answer most therapists land on is "I don't record sessions" — which means session notes get written from memory, which means accuracy suffers, which means the EHR fields get terser, which means continuity of care across the inevitable handoffs gets thinner. it's a real tradeoff and AI hasn't fixed it.
what changes with on-device transcription
when the speech-recognition model runs in your browser, the audio doesn't leave the device that recorded it. there is no third party. there is no log to subpoena, no cache to breach, no terms-of-service to renegotiate. HIPAA's BAA requirement applies to business associates; an in-browser tool that you run yourself isn't one. (we are not your lawyers and this is not legal advice — see "what we don't promise" below.)
workflow
- record the session locally — phone, laptop, or dedicated recorder. nothing sent.
- open audiohighlight in your browser, in private mode. drop the file in. transcription runs locally with no network request.
- review the transcript. fix speaker labels in bulk if needed. click any word to verify against the audio.
- export to .docx or paste relevant excerpts into your EHR's note field. the audio file and the transcript both stay on your machine.
- close the tab. the in-browser session is gone. no cache, no history, no recovery.
what we don't promise
this page is a feature description, not legal advice. HIPAA compliance has many components beyond data flow — physical safeguards on the device that holds the audio, access controls if the device is shared, retention policies that fit your state, the practice-management policies you maintain. we remove one component (the third-party processor) by removing the third party. the rest is yours.
we also don't promise medical-grade accuracy. transcription is transcription, not diagnosis. clinicians should verify quotes that matter — and the editor is built so you can: click a word, hear the second of audio it came from.
what about session-recording consent
recording-consent rules are state-level and patient-level. most jurisdictions allow session recording with explicit patient consent; some require both-parties consent in writing; most institutional review boards have specific language for consent forms. we don't change any of that. we change what happens after consent is given and the audio exists.
pricing
$0.25 per minute. $15.50 for a 50-minute session. private mode and cloud mode are the same price — no premium for on-device. no subscription, no minimum. you can run one session a month or batch a week at once; the math works out the same. for clinics with steady volume, group pricing arrives later — see about for plans.