Heidi AI (Heidi Health) Reviews 

Does not transcribe half a 5min session

I've used heidi for a few months now, and have noticed that it's getting progressively worse.

I use it as a dictation tool - so I speak directly into a microphone for 2-5 minutes. 80% of the time, I have to force it to regenerate the output because what it first generates misses half of what I say.

I've done free trials of other dictation/scribe services which are far better than Heidi. I'm frustrated that I've paid nearly $800AUD for a product that doesn't work first time and I am struggling to get a refund from Heidi.

Best support as Joel listened to me state my goals, stresses of not being efficient or getting the product I hoped for. I was as prepared as I knew how to be utilizing all video resources that I was aware of and it came down to better defining the context. That said, although I thought that was a lot of my problem, I just didn't know how to apply the correct verbiage. My reference point as a rheum consultant was using Dragon but this never accomplished the efficiency that I think Heidi does with great accuracy. So, pretty excited that Joel was able to get me over this mental hurtle in an hour or so! Thank you!

Extremely poor customer support. I paid for the annual service, which is not cheap, and would expect better customer service than I got. While the system generates good notes, the application itself is cumbersome to use, takes forever to generate a note, and now I've discovered that it does not always reliably transcribe sessions. Notes should be generated seamlessly. Instead, I have to toggle through different sessions to get past patient information. Not great for a busy practice. I'm not sure how my business will accommodate Heidi as my practice grows. The desktop app and the browser version create two entirely different SOAP notes using the same custom template. This is way too expensive to have so many issues. It really has the potential to be a hugely useful, time-saving service, but after dealing with customer service today, I am wholly dissatisfied.

I suppose it's not unusual for LLMs to sometimes take 1 step forward, and 2 steps back.

I use a homebrew AHK app with open-source plugins to do my own day-to-day STT on the desktop. After OpenAI rolled out "gpt-4o-transcribe" and "gpt-4o-mini-transcribe", I went to test-drive these "SOTA" models - with high hopes.

And they were instantly worse than the 2-year-old Whisper-1 in some important ways to me.

Basically, on the "zigzagging path of progress" LLM takes, I am willing to cut Heidi some slack. I even wonder how much control Heidi actually has over the model(s) they are using.

Below is taken from Heidi's own "Advanced Guide on Template":

"General AI instructions can sometimes work better at the start or end of a template. If an instruction isn’t performing as expected, try moving it. There’s no fixed rule, so experimentation is key."

Based on stuff like that, how much do we think Heidi even knows what goes on in Heidi's mind? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyhow, a few quick peer-to-peer tips, FWIW:

1. Use "paragraph", and not "new paragraph", as the trigger word to deliver double line breaks. Just tell Heidi to "MUST double-space" or "MUST add a blank line" upon hearing "paragraph". That's because Heidi will reliably transcribe "paragraph" but not "new paragraph" - reliably, even if latter was added as a phrase in prompt.

FWIW, neither could gpt-4o-transcribe, nor whisper-v1 (but paradoxically more reliably than gpt-4o). Yes, Dragon could give you "new paragraph" 1 million times out of a million. But gpt-4o-transcribe only gets it 6-7 times out of 10, for me anyway.

But AI gets the singleton word "paragraph" 99%. Therefore I use that for trigger instead.

2. For snippet insertion, use nouns Heidi will reliably discern, such as "snippet", "template", or "fragment", to lead the trigger phrases for your "AutoText" (as in Replacement). Initially I was using "Insert" as the lead word, since I do that in DMO. It sucked because Heidi interpreted "insert" as an action.

3. For putting line breaks into a snippet, use "<br><br>" (it may or may not show up correctly here, depending on how your browser parses). Anyway, that's down to browser HTML parsing, and not likely a Heidi feature per se.

4. For the few times I used Ambient Listening virtually, Heidi did just fine with Google Voice as a soft phone while I ran both from separate tabs in the same Chrome browser. FYI Heidi does NOT recommend this approach in their published "Telehealth Guide".

I didn't bother with any desktop app just yet. But I commiserate with the previous reviewer if the desktop app is indeed having ++ teething problems. Unlike LLMs doing their "own thing" to some extent, getting an app to function as intended is a prerogative that Heidi exercises control over.

Now onto my own grievances:

1. Heidi monumentally dropped the ball on its phone app - there are no two ways of putting it. An audio-based phone app doesn't process phone audio? Can I market a piece of exercise equipment that one can't exercise on? As it stands, it is a mere "memo recorder" that uploads to the Heidi server (and glitchily at that).

Is telehealth not done over the telephone, which everyone nowadays understands to imply cellular devices primarily?

And if there is one scenario where I do need "Ambient Listening" more than any other, it is over the mobile device. These are the times when I am often on the go where I have no means other than Heidi to record something wholesomely.

BTW, above is the chief reason I docked 1 star for my review. That ambient listening didn't wow consistently is something on which I can exercise my share of "forbearance".

That a so-called phone app doesn't transcribe phone conversation is neither comprehensible nor excusable!

2. Heidi should work on improving the reliability of "custom vocabulary". I accept that this one might be a tall order, especially since the OpenAI "SOTA" models are hit-and-miss, even with prompting. But here is hope.

3. A glitch I noticed very recently is that my custom templates tended to be AWOL when I freshly log into a browser session. Reloading the browser doesn't bring them back. Often after the first transcription they then showed up.

4. A piece of "low-hanging fruit" Heidi can pluck quickly is to implement a feature whereby I can have a set of "global AI instructions" that apply across the board to a slew of templates. I am tired of having to copy and paste to a bunch of others when I make changes to one.

5. Minor: Add a toggle for those of us who don't fancy AI to put anything at all into any section that bears the title "Assessment".

6. Relatively minor: Declutter the Settings menu. But dedicate a more prominent button to "Regenerate output" (which does have a keyboard shortcut, granted).

Would appreciate if you can fix what's in your control, Heidi!

Like many others have report, Heidi was great up until a month ago. Most recently it recorded my dialogue as the client not the clinician. I don't think I can use it anymore as it is now more problematic to edit the case notes than to write them correctly. I am trying Novonotes but I'm not convinced Novo is any better.
Really disappointing, Heidi "was" so amazing, maybe to good to be be true. I hope you get it back to what "they" were.

Also, working on a pay as you go structure would be great. I have been using the free service and when Heidi was working really well, I would have paid for it but I only operate my private clinic once a week so a monthly subscription is not worth it and I would not pay for it at the moment anyway, its not worth it.

I do hope you get back to where it was though.

I reviewed Heidi Health AI on 12 July, highlighting some of the issues with the app and browser system. The issues I have encountered are very similar to those of many other people out tehre.

Today, 2 August 2025, all remains the same with the app. The browser is a bit faster now, but the Windows app is useless.

The big problem is that I cannot use the browser for online work, as they change the settings and they say we can only use the app for online work, while the app is not good for face-to-face work. Ridiculous system. Makes no sense, should all be integrated.

Issues with app:
1 - takes ages to refresh a transcript, sometimes up to 5 minutes, which is too long for when I have sessions back to back.

2 - logs off automatically if "transcribing" for more than 30 minutes and cannot tolerate an hour at all.

3 - I have to close the app, open it again and it asks me to log in. Clearly Heidi is not listening to feedback, because the app should remember the computer like the browser does, and there should be no need to log in each time.

4 - The app incorrectly states that we can start a new session while the other session generates a transcript, but that is not true. The app was taking so long that I could not wait any longer so i followed the instructions. When the 2nd session ended, it had not done any transcribing at all, as it clearly cannot run 2 processes at once, like teh browser can.

5 - The app is a pointless system. All I need is for the browser to be able to transcribe remote video sessions properly, like it does Face-to-face, and then I can delete the app. The app has caused me so much stress and I absolutely hate it. Why create a silly app when the browser was doing such a good job before?

Please fix the browser to be able to do everything, and close the app down.

Notice how all reviews since March have been quite negative? Below is a prime example; I noticed that the program was including details in my templates that were NOT stated by patients; it is filling in details which is entirely inappropriate! When I asked the AI in the question bar why it did so, it gave this response: "The assessment and plan section of the document incorporates clinical reasoning and interpretations based on the information gathered during the encounter, rather than just transcribing the conversation." The program continues to do whatever it wants at random; this is NOT what users want. If Heidi as a company wants to continue operating it HAS to stop the program from going rogue and making unilateral decisions. What is so hard for you people to understand? And also the complete lack of timely support, AI-generated replies, etc just shows how wholly uninterested the company is in its customers. Either fix these issues or be left in bankruptcy in 2 years, your choice Heidi.

When it works, it works well but when it doesn't, it causes excessive catch up work.

Generally the notes that it transcribes as per my templates are good. All need to be edited which is to be expected. What is an ongoing issue is that several sessions don't generate the transcript per week, leaving me to fill in the gaps. It also takes a long time to generate a note so I have to stand around waiting for it sometimes for several minutes when I'd prefer to just get started with the next client/patient Overall the poor generation record is problematic. The lack of real person/real time support is hard to swallow given the cost. Halaxy has a much better support system. I am sure that a more advanced AI note taking is on the horizon and I anticipate that it will eclipse Heidi. In hindsight, I would have preferred to use another platform and will start investigating

Recent update has made it much worse - Heidi won't offer refunds despite service becoming unusable.

Heidi used to pick up most of the important details from the case history, and advice and exercises given. I had to spend a lot of time correcting inaccuracies, but despite this it was still useful. Now it seems to miss almost all of the important detail. Despite the level of service becoming unusable (and definitely not what I signed up for), Heidi won't offer a refund.

Lesson learned - avoid the paid version, and definitely don't commit to a year up front.

[Edit to add: regarding the reply below, Heidi have not been in touch about the review, and have not been helpful when I contacted them. It's just more AI generated bullshit.]

Waste of money
I liked it to start with and paid for the subscription.
After 2 weeks it messed up all the temlates that I created fro my work. Now it is useless for me.
Extremely poor support team. I could not chat / talk to anyone.
Waste of money

I initially found Heidihealth helpful, but unfortunately my experience declined over time. I was automatically locked into a paid subscription, and cancelling before payments began required multiple back-and-forth emails, which was frustrating. The transcription feature also stopped working without warning, and resolving this issue now feels like a complicated process. Overall, I’ve found these aspects difficult to navigate and not particularly user friendly.

Started of really well. Now has too many hallucinations. Becoming unsafe. Very poor support from team. Hit and miss of recordings / consultations.
Does not follow template. Some functions like using dictation tool after summary generated is very poor.

Was excellent but too many changes recently meaning it is totally unreliable, the note style and letter content is inconsistent. This month it has failed to record any of the objective findings - instead it listed subjective points from the patient. Have cancelled my subscription before it renews. What happened??!

be careful of their charges. they state AUD 799 on the website, but they sneakily charge USD 799. took 6 hours to respond the issue but reply from DESSA with helpless info did not address the issue at all. and yet it's been over a week now this issue hasn't been resolved.

Until recently, the transcription of consult notes was excellent (I have used a number of transcribing services in the past for comparison). However, in the past month the capacity for accurate and appropriately detailed consult notes has been completely lost. Brief and inaccurate notes with various random templates. I’m not sure what has gone so terribly wrong but right now Heidi is a waste of time. Very disappointing.

Heidi worked great until few weeks ago. Only started using 2 months back. The notes were great and had a lot of details which I prefer as a GP. Then last month, something changed. Since then, the notes have been all over the place, very short, barely covering any details. I have stopped using it for consultations, so have a couple of my other colleagues, who said the same thing - poor notes, no details, having to edit a lot, which makes it time consuming rather than easy. I use dictation function when needed but not transcribing anymore. Nevertheless, it was helpful and great when it started. Was very happy with it. Might try it now and again to see if note taking improved. If not, am back to manual typing until I find something better to work with..

There must have been a recent update to the system. Templates that I have used consistently and not changed in quite some time are now soooo much less helpful. The program is including it's own inferences/recommendations into HPI and Assessment/Plan sections (making recommendations for management that I NEVER STATED), excluding information that I explicitly stated, and the formatting of the HPI is totally different. When I ask it to remove the changes, it just regenerates an even less useful note and does not acknowledge my requests. Such a waste of time for me in the last few weeks. They need to reverse whatever changes they made and leave things alone.

I like it, and it is helpful. Yes, there are glitches, and I have also experienced transcripts not being generated from time to time. The most concerning aspect is the lack of support and the fact that the glitches are not easy to resolve. There is no way to get support in real time. Frustrating.

Unfortunately, I have now experienced the loss of an extensive transcript failing to be recorded twice (one failure of the full transcript to be recorded, told there was nothing tech could do, and again today, most of the 3.5-hour transcript failed to record) with no notification during telehealth that an error had occurred. Human tech support was unavailable over the weekend; unfortunately, an extensive report is due urgently.

Heidi is real life changer in my practice. made my life easier - very accurate - just copy and paste. Super Duper