Doctors are treating many more patients with ever more complicated medical problems and facing increasing pressure from regulatory agencies to meet their requirements. Clinicians spend several hours every day documenting the care provided to their patients, while spending hours on documentation work.
Studies show clinicians can spend up to 6 hours per day on EHR and administrative tasks, which is a documentation burden that includes reviewing and correcting notes. Its workload has created a significant contributor to the burnout, inefficiencies, and delays in being able to provide care to patients.
Fortunately, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has entered the medical field. Many have begun using the AI technologies and regard them as revolutionary in their speed, intelligence and capabilities. However, there is AI vs traditional transcription confusion. As a result, all healthcare providers, as well as the healthcare technology industry leaders and hospital administrators, are troubled by the following three questions:
- Can ChatGPT help transcribe audio files created by the clinician for clinical documentation?
- Is it safe to use AI technology to produce clinical documentation?
- Do providers still need to contract with medical transcription service providers if they are relying on AI solutions?
These questions have implications on numerous factors, including but not limited to; accuracy of the data, potential compliance risks, operational expenses, and satisfaction and wellness of the clinicians.
The purpose of this blog is to clarify these issues.
What ChatGPT Can and Cannot Do with Audio?
While it is true that ChatGPT offers the functionality to transcribe audio files, it’s important for businesses and health care organizations to understand the severe limitations of ChatGPT as a transcription tool.
ChatGPT-4 makes use of OpenAI’s Whisper API which is an application programming interface providing access to OpenAI’s general-purpose speech recognition engine.
Regular end users such as note takers casually use ChatGPT in common office meeting situations, creating rough drafts of content, etc.
The percentage of accuracy of the transcribed audio will be around 85-92% in these typical cases. Therefore, ChatGPT’s transcription tool is insufficient for use in high-risk, highly regulated, and/or precision-critical environments, such as healthcare and legal services.
Why Medical Transcription Shouldn’t Be Done with ChatGPT
At this time, AI-enabled transcription is not authorized to provide medical dictation or clinical documentation. Ongoing studies and other evaluations from within the healthcare and technology communities have yielded findings that AI alone will produce an unacceptably high rate of error in terms of transcribed medical content.
The JMIR (Journal of Medical Internet Research) published a peer-reviewed study evaluating AI-generated medical transcripts in real-world clinical situations. The researchers gathered data from 33 physicians across 17 different medical specialties. The researchers were able to demonstrate multiple reasons why AI-generated transcriptions cannot be used.
The key results from the JMIR study revealed the following key deficiencies:
The average number of errors per case was 23.6.
Most of the errors consisted of missing critical information, fabricating information, and incorrectly documenting clinical terminology, all of which pose a risk to the safety of patients.
72% accuracy of medical record documentation.
This level of accuracy is significantly below the 99%+ accuracy benchmark established by the medical records industry for medical records, billing, and legal defensibility.
Errors in the quality of documentation for a physician
The PDQI scores exhibited a wide range of variances across cases, which resulted in inconsistent and untrustworthy documentation.
For cases with longer duration, the accuracy of the transcriptions significantly decreased
This indicates an inverse relationship between length of encounter and length of encounter complexity and risk of documentation errors.
Why Errors Are Significant in Clinical Settings
Medical Transcripts are not only notes; they serve as the basis for billing, legal recordkeeping, and clinical decision-making. Even minor documentation errors can result in:
- Incorrect diagnosis or treatment
- Incorrect coding and reimbursement
- Violation of compliance standards
- Increased malpractice risk to healthcare organizations
All AI systems presently lack the ability to demonstrate clinical reasoning, contextual awareness, and organizational accountability to eliminate these documentation error risks consistently.
Core AI Weaknesses in Medical Transcription
Accuracy gap: 83–90% accuracy versus 99%+ with professional human transcription.
Hallucinations: AI systems may invent or alter clinical details, a risk highlighted in multiple investigative reports.
Lapses in HIPAA Compliance: Most AI platforms and software require a Complex Business Associate Agreement (BAA) to do business and even then continue to have potential exposure to exposure.
These limitations are inherent to AI and are not isolated incidences; these are fundamental limitations of AI as Large Language Models (LLMs).
What can ChatGPT do?
In healthcare, ChatGPT adds value to any speech-to-text solution or transcription process by working with the given text. Generally, when it comes to healthcare workflows, uses of ChatGPT can be summarized into three general insight areas –
1) to create structured, complete datasets of patient encounters for continued care
2) to create concise one-page summaries of multiple patient encounters.
3) to enhance the readability of clinical documentation with correctly formatted keywords, phrases, abbreviations, sentence structures, etc.
Medical Dictation Workflow: Step-by-Step (Human Transcription)
The conventional medical dictation process is a long-standing, compliance-based workflow that uses a systematic step-by-step process to ensure accurate documentation in the context of compliance, accuracy, and safety. It is still considered the best practice for high volume, high risk clinical documentation because of increased compliance and accuracy.
The Dictation Process Steps
Step 1 – Clinical Encounter and EMR Capture
The physician completes the clinical encounter with the patient and at the same time, enters key data associated with the encounter into the EMR system. Supporting documents, templates, and previous notes are easily accessible.
Step 2: Physician Dictation (≈ 5 minutes)
The physician dictates structured voice recordings that summarize the clinical encounter, diagnosis, assessment, and plan.
The process of dictation can be done through a mobile app, phone, or EMR-compatible recorder.
Step 3 – Professional Medical Transcription (approximately 15 minutes)
An experienced medical transcriptionist (MT) takes the audio recording and creates an accurate medical document. This step includes verifying medical terms; understanding the meaning of the medical terms; and documenting according to specialty-specific practices.
Step 4 – Physician Review and Quality Assurance (approximately 5 minutes)
The physician will review the completed medical document for accuracy and for the intended medical purpose; only small changes should be made prior to the physician’s final approval.
Step 5 – Secure Archiving and EMR Integration
After the physician’s approval, the medical document is securely archived and automatically placed into the EMR while maintaining compliance with the HIPAA regulations.
Overall time per visit ~ 25 minutes
Medical Document Accuracy Rate ~ 99%
Best Candidates for Service – Complex cases, Specialty Practices, High Compliance Settings, and Legal Defensibility.
Comparison of Medical Transcription Costs (2026 Industry Data)
Are you trying to decide between the use of ChatGPT, AI dictation systems, traditional dictation, or outsourcing medical transcription? Here is a sample of the actual costs associated with doing business with 10 physicians that see 20 patients per day (200 encounters per day, 20 business days per month).
Cost Per 15-Minute Encounter (Industry Average)
| Method | Cost/Encounter | Monthly Total (4K Encounters) | Accuracy |
| ChatGPT (Whisper) | $0.09 | $360 | 85% |
| AI Dictation (Dragon) | $5-10 | $12,000 | 90% |
| Traditional Dictation | $12-18 | $36,000 | 98% |
| Outsourcing | $8-12 | $28,800 | 99%+ |
Hidden Costs Exposed: The True Price of Medical Transcription Choices
AI transcription seems to offer a cost-effective way for organizations in health care to transcribe medical records. But there are hidden costs, such as risks to compliance, rework time, and potential liabilities that often exceed what was initially saved.
Option 1: ChatGPT-Style Transcription Tools
While general-purpose AI tools are not created for medical use and do not adhere to medical practice guidelines, some of them can be beneficial in assisting practitioners with transcriptions at a low cost. However, this practice could expose physicians and other medical professionals to significant financial and legal risks.
Examples of potentially hidden financial and legal risk factors include:
Exposure to HIPAA Violation
Failure to properly protect PHI could result in fines of up to $50,000 for every HIPAA violation, or $1,800/month in legal costs for small practices.
Rework Rate is High
It has been estimated that more than 15% of charts generated using an AI program will require time from the physician to correct the chart generated through an AI program, thus costing much more.
There is No Medical Liability Accountability
Any errors, omissions, or hallucinated information created by AI would transfer the liability for that error directly to the physician.
True Cost Annually:
Although the cost of the software may appear low, the total cost could exceed $50,000/year, including compliance costs and costs associated with rework.
Option 2: Medical Dictation AI Tools
Medical dictation is viewed as a step up from regular AI tools; however, both require a lot of intervention by doctors. Several common factors that create added costs for physicians when using AI dictation tools include:
Editing Time of Physicians
On average, physicians spend an estimated 10% of their clinical time reviewing and correcting AI-generated dictation, costing each physician some of their productivity.
Residual Risks for Compliance
While medical dictation tools are more secure than normal AI tools, they still require that physicians perform additional monitoring and validation.
True annual cost:
When time and risk are included, costs can reach $27,000 or more per year, depending on the practice size.
Option 3: Medical Transcription Outsourcing (Human or Hybrid)
Professional medical transcription services are designed specifically for healthcare workflows, compliance, and accuracy.
Cost advantages include:
- Near-zero rework due to 99%+ accuracy
- HIPAA compliance with BAA included
- EMR/EHR integration, reducing administrative overhead
- Time savings of up to 2 hours per provider per week
True annual cost:
Predictable, controlled, and significantly lower when measured against productivity gains and reduced risk.
Break-Even Analysis: What Works Best by Practice Size
| Practice Size | Recommended Approach | Estimated Annual Savings |
| 1–5 providers | Outsourcing | $48,000 vs traditional methods |
| 10–25 providers | AI + Outsourcing (Hybrid) | $120,000 vs in-house teams |
| 50+ providers | AI-dominant with human QA | $300,000 vs medical scribes |
Conclusion
Medical transcription services provide a solution to the unreliability of AI transcription by focusing on what is most important – accuracy, accountability, and compliance. Professional transcription services have trained professionals in clinical language, workflows specific to healthcare, and awareness of the regulations. They have established methods of performing quality checks that produce trusted records for medical professionals that require no additional revisions or rework.
The best organizations are making choices not just between AI or people but rather identifying the best tool for the task. In healthcare, documentation accuracy is critical – and when the stakes are high, creating accurate documentation initially is the only way.
Most Asked Medical Transcription Questions
- How much does medical transcription cost per note?
Medical transcription costs $8–$12 per 15-minute patient encounter in 2026, depending on volume, turnaround time, and specialty complexity.
Common pricing models
- Per line: $0.10–$0.16 (65 characters)
- Per finished page: $1.50–$3.00
- High-volume pricing: As low as $0.08 per line (500+ notes/month)
2. How long does medical transcription take?
Most professional medical transcription services deliver notes within 24 business hours.
Turnaround options
- Routine: 24 hours (99%+ on-time delivery)
- Priority: 4–12 hours (+~25% cost)
- STAT: Same day (+~50% cost)
Time per encounter
- Dictation: 5 minutes
- Transcription: 15 minutes
- Physician review: 5 minutes
Total documentation time: Approximately 25 minutes per visit, without disrupting patient care.
3. Is medical transcription HIPAA compliant?
Yes, when carried out by a qualified vendor, medical transcription is fully HIPAA compliant.
Required safeguards
- Signed Business Associate Agreement (BAA)
- SOC 2 Type II–certified infrastructure
- AES-256 encryption (at rest and in transit)
- Strict access controls and audit logs
- HIPAA-trained, U.S.-based transcriptionists
Important
Using unsecured or offshore services without these protections can expose practices to HIPAA violations, fines, and legal risk.
4. How accurate is human medical transcription?
Professional human medical transcription delivers 99.2% accuracy or higher using multi-level quality assurance.
Accuracy benchmarks
- Medication names: 99.9%
- Laterality (right vs left): 99.8%
- Dosages and frequencies: 99.7%
- Physician edit time: 2–3 minutes per note
Peer-reviewed studies show AI-only transcription averages 85–90% accuracy, which may be insufficient for clinical, billing, or legal documentation.
5. Can I dictate medical notes on my iPhone?
Yes. Mobile dictation is now standard, with nearly 90% of physicians using smartphones for clinical documentation.
Common options
- Dragon Medical One mobile app
- Built-in dictation in EMRs like Epic and Cerner
- Secure toll-free dictation phone lines
- Encrypted file uploads via secure portals
Setup time: Under 5 minutes
Works in: Clinics, hospitals, and remote settings
6. Typing vs dictation vs scribes: Which is fastest?
Dictation with professional transcription is the fastest and most cost-effective option.
| Method | Time per Patient | Estimated Cost (10 Providers) |
| Typing | 45 minutes | No direct cost, high burnout risk |
| Dictation + Transcription | 25 minutes | ~$28,000/month |
| Medical Scribes | 35 minutes | ~$750,000/year |
