If you work in healthcare and you've started looking at AI documentation tools, two names come up fast: Heidi Health and BastionGPT. Both aim to reduce the paperwork that eats into clinical time, but they take very different approaches to getting there.
OrientationWhat each platform actually is
Full-spectrum HIPAA-compliant AI platform
A HIPAA-compliant AI platform built specifically for healthcare professionals. Combines a full-featured AI assistant for drafting notes, analyzing documents, and handling administrative tasks with an unlimited AI Scribe for session transcription. Runs a multi-model engine (GPT-5, Claude Opus, Gemini 3 Pro, and others) that picks the best model for the task.
An AI Care Partner, scribe-first
Started in Australia and has grown into what the company now calls an "AI Care Partner." At its core it's an ambient AI scribe: it listens to patient encounters and generates clinical notes. Heidi has expanded into patient communications (Heidi Comms), clinical decision support (Heidi Evidence), and automated billing and coding. Supports 110+ languages across 190 countries.
Security and data privacy
This is where the gap is hardest to ignore. BastionGPT was built around HIPAA compliance from day one. A Business Associate Agreement (BAA) is included on every plan, not reserved for enterprise tiers or added as an upsell. Patient data, prompts, documents, and audio are never shared with OpenAI or any other third-party AI provider for model training. Data at rest is protected with AES-256 encryption, data in transit uses HTTPS/TLS, and data centers carry HITRUST and ISO 27001 certifications. Heidi Health holds similar certifications, with GDPR compliance for European markets as a major differentiator.
AI model depth and flexibility
BastionGPT offers access to a pool of top-tier AI models and uses response modes that automatically select the ideal model based on the content of the prompt. A complex differential diagnosis question might route to a different model than a straightforward SOAP note draft.
Heidi uses its own proprietary models tuned for ambient transcription and note generation. For straightforward encounter documentation, this works. But for tasks outside the scribe workflow (analyzing a 50-page insurance document, summarizing lab data across multiple files, or drafting a nuanced referral letter from uploaded records) BastionGPT's broader model pool and document analysis capabilities give it a clear advantage.
Scope of functionality
Heidi works as a scribe. BastionGPT offers more than a scribe. On every plan, users get an AI assistant that can:
- Draft SOAP, DAP, BIRP, and progress notes
- Write referral letters and discharge summaries
- Review documentation for errors and inconsistencies
- Suggest medical codes
- Analyze uploaded PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets, and images
- Run an unlimited AI Scribe with up to ten speakers
This matters because clinical AI needs often extend well beyond transcription. A therapist might need to merge and summarize three intake documents. A medical coder might need to cross-reference a chart against billing guidelines. A physician might want to upload a radiology report and ask targeted questions. BastionGPT handles all of that in a single platform. With Heidi, you'd typically need to supplement with other tools — including BastionGPT — for much of this work.
Pricing and value
Heidi's Clinician plan runs $150 per user per month (billed annually). BastionGPT's plans start at $20 per user per month and include features — advanced document analysis and the unlimited AI Scribe among them — that are either absent or limited in Heidi's offering.
For a small practice evaluating cost per feature, BastionGPT delivers more capability per dollar.
Where Heidi has the edgeInternational and multilingual support
If your practice operates outside the United States, Canada, or Australia, Heidi offers transcription and note generation in over 110 languages, while BastionGPT has trained models on the top dozen languages. BastionGPT currently supports HIPAA (US), PIPEDA/PIPA/PHIPA (Canada), and APP (Australia), but Heidi's GDPR compliance and its deep footprint in European and UK markets give it a genuine lead for clinicians practicing in those regions.
AI receptionist and patient communications
Heidi Comms is a full AI receptionist product that handles inbound and outbound patient calls 24/7. It can book appointments, send reminders, manage recall campaigns, triage routine questions from a practice's knowledge base, and transfer to a human when needed. For practices drowning in phone volume and missed calls, this is a real differentiator for practices who want to implement a scribe and phone assistant in a single tool. BastionGPT does not offer a patient-facing communications or scheduling agent, since that is not its focus.
The bottom linePick the platform that matches your practice
These two platforms overlap on ambient documentation, but they diverge quickly after that.
You're in the UK/EU, need 110+ languages, or want an AI receptionist built into your scribe
Heidi Health is likely the stronger choice if you practice in the UK or EU, need GDPR compliance, want an AI receptionist handling your front-desk phones, or require documentation in less common languages.
Full-spectrum clinical AI under a HIPAA framework
BastionGPT is the stronger choice if your priority is a secure, full-spectrum clinical AI platform (built to feel familiar to tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude) that handles not just transcription but deep document analysis, multi-model intelligence, and administrative support, all under a clear HIPAA-compliant framework with a BAA on every plan and zero data reuse.
For clinicians who want one tool that covers the broadest range of clinical AI tasks without compromising on privacy, BastionGPT is the clear leader.