PATIENT ENCOUNTER: 

Async (AI Interview + Scribe): No live appointment needed; an AI avatar conducts a full mental health interview with the patient on their own time, and the clinician reviews later. 

Typical AI Scribe (Others): Requires a scheduled live visit; the clinician or patient must speak in real time for the scribe to capture dialogue. No interview happens without the clinician present. 

PRIMARY FUNCTION: 

Async (AI Interview + Scribe): Performs intake and documentation. Async’s AI asks questions, listens, and drafts the intake note – essentially starting the clinical process autonomously. 

Typical AI Scribe (Others): Performs documentation only. The AI listens to a conversation and transcribes or summarizes it into a note. It does not initiate or guide the medical interview. 

IMPACT ON WORKFLOW: 

Async (AI Interview + Scribe): Transforms workflow: Enables on-demand asynchronous care – patients begin evaluation immediately, and clinicians handle more cases in parallel. Eliminates wait times by decoupling intake from the doctor’s schedule. 

Typical AI Scribe (Others): Streamlines existing workflow: Saves doctors time on writing notes, but doesn’t increase throughput since each patient still requires a one-to-one live session. Waitlists and scheduling constraints remain the same. 

EFFICIENCY GAIN: 

Async (AI Interview + Scribe): Approximately 50% time saved per case. The clinician’s interview time is eliminated or markedly reduced, often doubling the number of new patients a provider can manage. 

Typical AI Scribe (Others): Approximately 20% time saved per case. Documentation burden is reduced (e.g., cutting out the 2.3 hours of paperwork per 8-hour clinic day), but total patient-facing time is unchanged. Slightly more patients might be seen in the time saved. 

SPECIALIZATION: 

Async (AI Interview + Scribe): Built for behavioral health: Async’s questions and note templates are tailored to psychiatric evaluations (including suicidal ideation checks, DSM-5 criteria, etc.). Validation occurred in mental health settings, ensuring sensitivity to nuance in patient expressions. 

Typical AI Scribe (Others): General or other specialties: Many ambient scribes were first designed for primary care or specialties like orthopedics. They transcribe any conversation, but may not capture psychiatric assessments as systematically (for example, they rely on the clinician to ask all relevant questions). 

HUMAN TOUCH: 

Async (AI Interview + Scribe): Enhances patient experience: Patients can speak freely to the AI interviewer at home, often sharing more, and can re-record their answers if they wish. Clinicians then focus their live interaction on discussion and empathy, not rote questioning. Also, the AI can translate languages on the fly, bridging communication gaps. 

Typical AI Scribe (Others): Reduces clinician multitasking: During a live visit, the doctor can pay more attention to the patient since they’re not writing notes. However, the patient still has to come in or connect for a real-time visit. The AI doesn’t engage the patient directly; it’s just in the background.

As the table shows, Async extends beyond the capabilities of typical AI scribes. Traditional ambient scribe solutions primarily tackle the documentation burden, which is indeed valuable – they listen to the conversation and create a draft note, saving clinicians from hours of typing. But these tools don't address other major pain points in behavioral health: long waitlists, no-show appointments, and limited clinician capacity. They still operate within a one-patient-to-one-doctor, scheduled appointment framework.

AsyncHealth’s Async system breaks that mold completely. By having an AI conduct the intake, patients begin care by telling their history immediately instead of waiting weeks.