Start With Recovered Hours, Not Vendor Pricing
The dominant variable in AI scribe ROI is not the subscription figure but the value of the clinician time it returns. Begin by measuring documentation minutes per clinic day per provider over two weeks. That baseline is the foundation of every number that follows, and practices that skip it end up arguing about assumptions instead of evidence.
Decide What an Hour Is Worth
Recovered hours convert two ways, and the choice changes the calculation. If your constraint is capacity, an hour converts to additional visits at your average revenue per encounter. If your constraint is clinician wellbeing or retention, the hour converts to time not worked after hours — harder to price, and often the reason leadership actually approves the purchase.
Count the Costs You're Replacing
Compare against the fully loaded alternative rather than the sticker price of staffing. In-house documentation support carries salary, payroll taxes, benefits, paid leave, software, equipment, training, and idle time when volume dips. Our outsourcing comparison breaks these down.
Include the Costs People Forget
Three line items get omitted routinely: the configuration time your team spends during onboarding, the review time that remains per note after the tool runs, and turnover cost if documentation burden is contributing to attrition. The first two are small but real. The third is usually the largest number on the page and the least often calculated.
Build the Number From Your Own Data
Run a two-week trial, measure documentation minutes before and after on the same providers, and apply your own revenue or retention figures. That produces a defensible number rather than a vendor's illustrative model. Our trial is free, and our pricing page shows the cost side without a sales call.