Heidi Team
50,000 sessions recorded
600,000 minutes transcribed
61,000 notes and documents created
27 active users
91% provider adoption over 6 months
If you lead or practice in a high-volume surgical specialty, orthopedics, sports medicine, or any practice where office visits and OR time split your week, this story will resonate.
Whether you're a practice administrator watching transcription costs climb year after year, or a surgeon who still dictates notes from the parking lot on Saturday mornings, this case study is worth reading.
It's about what happens when a group of busy orthopedic surgeons stops patching around the documentation problem and fixes it, and the financial, clinical, and human impact that follows.
Kennedy-White Orthopedic Center has grown from a four-physician practice into one of the region's most established orthopedic groups, now comprising 15 physicians and 16 physician assistants. Over nearly three decades of growth, the practice has built its reputation on clinical excellence and a deeply patient-focused approach to musculoskeletal care.
That growth brought an administrative weight that the original model, a network of contracted human transcriptionists spread across the country, was never built to sustain at scale. The practice was seeing roughly 2,000 patients per week, approximately 100,000 visits a year, and every encounter needed to be documented.
Unlike many surgical specialties, orthopedics is office-intensive: surgeons generate roughly half their revenue from patient visits, not the operating room. That means the documentation burden is enormous, falling entirely on the physicians themselves.
The documentation challenge at Kennedy-White Orthopedic Center was comprised of multiple problems. And, like most practices, they had been managing rather than solving them for years.
With 31 providers generating notes for 100,000 visits annually, the practice relied on nine contracted transcriptionists billed by the line. The total ran to close to $450,000 a year, a figure that had grown steadily as the practice expanded and showed no sign of reversing.
Physicians who didn't dictate in the room were spending extra hours each day catching up. Dictation had become, as one administrator described it, the thing they disliked most about practicing medicine.
Insurance companies regularly requested documentation to justify billing codes, sometimes years after the visit. For roughly half the physicians, the documentation wasn't clearly connecting the dots, creating real financial and legal exposure.
Dictation became like this horrible thing — the thing that [physicians] disliked most.
Sean O'Neal
For years the practice had tried to solve the cost problem by optimizing contracts, and the quality problem by coaching physicians to dictate more thoroughly. Neither approach touched the root issue: the documentation workflow was fundamentally disconnected from the patient encounter.
That changed when one physician took it on as a research project — and came back with a name: Heidi.
Dr. Klein was asked to evaluate AI medical scribing options on the market and recommend one to the practice. He tested several. He came back with a clear verdict.
"I found the solution, Heidi."— Dr. David Klein, Orthopedic Surgeon
The pilot started with Dr. Klein alone. Within days, he had dramatically reduced his use of the dictation service. Within weeks, he was completely off it. The practice rolled Heidi out to the broader group and found that once physicians actually tried it, adoption was nearly universal and almost immediate.
Within literally two or three days, they would be completely using Heidi. I had a doctor come up to me on the third day and say: 'You know why I'm here talking to you? Because I don't have to dictate now.'
Sean O'Neal
Dr. Klein's ambient workflow, step by step:
Another physician on the team uses Heidi exactly as he would a human transcriptionist, dictating a full narrative after finishing with each patient, even using natural language corrections mid-dictation. Every provider can build on their existing habits rather than abandon them.
The team also invested time in customizing templates, new patient, follow-up, and workers' comp formats, along with in-office procedure templates. A particularly useful innovation: each note now opens with a memorable orienting phrase so the physician instantly knows who they're walking back in to see. For example, a patient summary could appear as the following: "Catherine is a 29-year-old right-hand-dominant landscape architect from Finland with a three-month history of left wrist pain from pickleball."
"It's saved us money. It's made us more efficient. It's made us more secure in billing. We're coding at higher levels than we were before because we know the documentation is there."— Sean O'Neal, CEO
Nine contracted transcriptionists billing by the line represented close to $450,000 annually. By moving nearly all 31 providers to Heidi, the practice has almost completely eliminated that spend. Dr. Klein estimates a 13–15× reduction in per-provider transcription cost at Heidi's current rate — for notes available within minutes, not hours or days after the visit.
You're looking at a 13 to 15 times reduction in price for transcription, with notes that are available immediately.
Dr. David Klein
For providers who were dictating after hours, Heidi has returned that time entirely. Some are using the reclaimed time to see additional patients; others are simply leaving earlier.
"Guys who were sitting here after patients dictating, they're going home now. They're not spending Saturday dictating instead of being with their family."— Sean O'Neal, CEO
For roughly half the practice, documentation quality had been a real liability. With Heidi's structured templates, those physicians now generate notes that connect every billed item to documented evidence. The practice is billing at higher levels with confidence, and templates automatically adapt to new insurer requirements without physicians having to remember them.
Physicians are no longer dictating into a recorder or typing at a screen while the patient waits. The note is written by the encounter itself. Patient feedback has been uniformly positive, many commenting that they appreciate eye contact throughout the visit.
"He's just free to completely engage with the patient in a conversation, and as part of that, generate an office note that is easier and more accurate than it was before. He leaves the room, and he's done."— Sean O'Neal, CEO
Unexpected benefit: Heidi is also being used to generate referral letters to other physicians, a practice-building activity that was previously under-done because it was time-consuming. As Sean noted, the easier it is, the more it gets done.
With 27 active users, 91% adoption, and 61,000 notes already generated, Kennedy-White Orthopedic Center’s implementation is no longer a pilot, it's the standard of practice. The team continues to refine templates as billing requirements evolve, and is exploring whether Heidi can support in-office surgical suite documentation more fully.
I've heard more than once, from more than one person: Heidi is the greatest thing ever.
Sean O'Neal
