NovaScribe vs Abridge: Enterprise Scribe or Independent Practice?
Abridge is the most heavily funded company in ambient clinical documentation, and by most accounts it builds an excellent product. If you work inside a large health system there is a reasonable chance it is already available to you, or will be soon.
I am Patrick Proctor, a practicing cardiologist and the founder of NovaScribe™. This comparison is a little different from the others on this site, because for most of the physicians reading it, NovaScribe and Abridge are not really competing for the same decision.
The short answer
Abridge sells to institutions. NovaScribe sells to physicians.
If your health system has already deployed Abridge, use it. It is well built, it is integrated into your chart by people whose job that is, and someone else is paying for it. I would not try to talk you out of a good tool your employer has already bought.
If you are in an independent practice, the comparison ends quickly for a reason that has nothing to do with quality: you cannot buy Abridge. There is no individual plan, no self-serve signup, and no free trial for a physician who is not attached to an institutional contract. That is a deliberate business decision on their part, and a perfectly defensible one. It just leaves a large number of physicians without an answer.
What Abridge does well
- Scale and institutional trust. Abridge is deployed across more than 300 health systems, including Mayo Clinic, Duke Health, Johns Hopkins, and Kaiser Permanente. That is not a marketing claim you can wave away.
- Deep EHR integration. When an enterprise buys Abridge, the integration work is done properly, by their team and yours, with the resources that implies.
- Somebody else handles it. Procurement, security review, training, and support all run through your organisation. If you are an employed physician, that is a genuine benefit and not a small one.
- Research and resourcing. They are better funded than we are, by an enormous margin, and it shows in the engineering.
Where the two products differ
Who is allowed to buy it
This is the whole comparison for most readers. Abridge requires an organisational contract. Procurement runs through health system IT and contracting, and pricing is quote only. If you are a solo physician, a two-partner practice, or a small independent group, there is no door for you to walk through.
NovaScribe takes about a minute to start and does not involve anyone from IT.
Whether you can see the price
Abridge does not publish pricing. Third-party estimates for enterprise deployments vary widely, from roughly two hundred dollars per provider per month at the low end to well over a thousand at the high end, which tells you mostly that the real number depends on a negotiation you are not part of.
Our prices are on our pricing page. Free, ninety-nine dollars a month, or two hundred and twenty-nine dollars a month. You do not have to speak to anyone to find that out, and I think that matters more than it sounds like it should.
What the note is for
Enterprise scribes are built around a health system’s priorities: throughput, consistency across hundreds of clinicians, and integration with an existing revenue cycle team.
In an independent practice there is no revenue cycle team. There is you. That is why NovaScribe puts a wRVU value and a dollar estimate on the encounter and tells you whether your documentation supports the level you are about to bill. In a large system a coding department catches an under-coded 99213. In a small practice nobody catches it.
If you leave
An institutional licence belongs to the institution. If you change jobs, the tool stays behind. A personal subscription moves with you. Whether that matters depends entirely on your situation, but it is worth knowing before you build a workflow around something.
Side by side
| NovaScribe | Abridge | |
|---|---|---|
| Who can buy it | Any individual physician | Health systems and institutions only |
| Self-serve signup | Yes, minutes | No |
| Free access | 10 notes a month, does not expire | None for independent clinicians |
| Published pricing | Yes | No, quote only |
| Typical cost | $0, $99 or $229 a month | Not disclosed. Estimates vary widely per provider |
| IT involvement | None | Enterprise procurement and integration |
| EHR integration | Copy and paste, any EHR | Deep, built during implementation |
| wRVU value and dollar estimate | Yes | Enterprise revenue cycle tooling |
| Licence follows | You | The institution |
| Built by | A practicing cardiologist | A large venture-backed team |
Try NovaScribe For Free. Ten notes a month, every Professional feature switched on, no credit card.
Who should use Abridge
Employed physicians at a health system that has already deployed it, or is about to. Large multi-specialty organisations that need one documentation standard across hundreds of clinicians and have the people to run an implementation. If that is you, Abridge is a strong choice and the fact that I sell something else does not change that.
Who should use NovaScribe
Independent physicians and small groups who need a working scribe this week rather than after a procurement cycle. Anyone who wants to see the price before committing, wants the coding and wRVU layer because there is no billing department behind them, or simply wants to try the thing before paying for it.
An honest closing note
I am not going to claim NovaScribe out-engineers a company with that much capital behind it. What I will say is that they built for institutions and I built for the practice I actually work in. If you are in a similar practice, start with ten free notes and see whether it fits. If your hospital hands you Abridge tomorrow, take it and enjoy your evenings.
Try NovaScribe For Free. Ten notes a month, every Professional feature switched on, no credit card.
