The U.S. faces a shortfall of up to 86,000 primary-care physicians over the next decade, while the number of Americans 65 and older is projected to grow to 20% of the overall population.
Healthcare organizations, already stretched thin, are well aware that things are going to get worse.
To minimize any negative impacts of a supply-demand imbalance, many are taking a “throw things at the wall and see what sticks” approach. Investments in everything from mobile mindfulness apps to clinical decision support (CDS) software have surged. The hope is that a combination of advanced technologies and edgy apps will help eliminate burnout, a key cause of physician shortages.
The interest in high-tech fixes is understandable. Reducing just one primary-care provider departure saves the average healthcare organization $1M in lost panel revenue and recruitment costs.
But the right solution to burnout isn't more tools and apps. It’s fewer.
Healthcare providers already spend too many hours documenting, reviewing, and coding. EHRs, which were intended to make their lives easier, have only added administrative burdens. Alert fatigue stemming from constant CDS notifications impacts care quality, sometimes dangerously.
What’s needed from this point forward is smarter technologies that deliver immediate and long-term impact.
For a growing number of primary-care physicians, ambient AI scribes are the clear winner with a proven ROI.
Since adopting the Heidi ambient AI scribe, Hawse Health, a federally qualified health center (FQHC) serving a diverse rural community in West Virginia, started saving two hours per day on documentation through real-time dictation and contextual editing.
Clinicians, in turn, can now focus solely on in-person encounters; their attention isn’t divided between patients and their laptop, as Heidi captures every element of the visit, and adjusts notes to ensure accuracy.
“It’s saved us time, improved patient care, and eliminated the stress of after-hours documentation,” said Tiffany Garner, Assistant Medical Director and Nurse Practitioner for Hawse Health, noting that the time savings has also increased capacity. Clinicians can now see two additional patients per day and still finish work on time.
Ending the day when the practice closed was also an issue for OneCare Vermont, a nonprofit Accountable Care Organization (ACO) and part of the University of Vermont Health Network.
"I stay late — probably two hours after my clinic ends — and then spend a few hours on either my off day or the weekends to catch up,” recalled Dr. Job Larson, a family medicine physician at Community Health Center of Rutland Region (CHCRR), a five-location, rural healthcare group within the OneCare Vermont ACO umbrella.
That changed in September 2025, when OneCare Vermont and Heidi Health announced a partnership backed by a $320,000 investment from OneCare's ACO to help independent practices and FQHCs across Vermont adopt AI scribe tools.
Larson adopted a simple setup. During a patient visit, he gains patient consent, runs Heidi securely on his phone, talks to his patient, then reviews practice notes after the visit before uploading relevant sections to his EHR. Just by using Heidi, he saves about 40 minutes per day in documentation.
There are other benefits, too. For complex chronic care visits, the Heidi transcript becomes a reference: a reliable record of what was discussed, what was promised, and what needs to follow.
"It's very helpful to be able to look back at the transcript and make sure that I'm doing all the things that we talked about at the visit,” Dr. Larson said.
The experiences of both healthcare organizations are encouraging.
Healthcare providers don’t need a massive technology overhaul and a lot of shiny mobile apps. They only need effective, easy-to-use solutions with a proven ROI.
Clinical AI can have an immediate and positive impact on physician workload. The sooner that healthcare organizations can measurably shorten administrative burdens, the happier and more productive providers in primary care and other specialties will be.
Learn more about using Heidi in primary care.
