65. The Future of AI-Native EHR for Therapists

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The Future of AI-Native EHR for Therapists

The very first AI native EHR for therapists is on its way, and it could transform how private practice owners manage their businesses. In this episode of Run Your Private Practice with AI, I’m sharing updates about this project with Berries and how it’s designed to reduce burnout and streamline workflows.

This isn’t just an EHR that stores information. It actively supports your practice with treatment planning, denied claim corrections, progress tracking, and smart scheduling. I also highlight new research from Stanford on how AI is enhancing PTSD treatment, showing how quickly AI is becoming a trusted partner in mental health care.

AI Tips You Don’t Want to Miss:

  • How the first AI native EHR for therapists is being developed with Berries.
  • Ways AI can support treatment planning, billing, and scheduling in private practice.
  • Stanford’s new initiative to use AI in PTSD treatment and clinician training.
  • Practical examples of how AI assistants can provide between-session support for clients.
  • The future of AI integration in group practices and supervision.

Mentioned in this episode:

Connect with me:

Sponsored by Alma: www.helloalma.com/kym
Sponsored by Berries: www.heyberries.com/therapists

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Hey guys, I like to hop in here on Wednesdays and just check in with you all, see how you’re doing, I am not gonna lie, I’m having a hard time easing back into working after taking all of August off.

[00:00:13] I was able to do that luckily because of all the AI systems and I have a virtual assistant and I was able to put a ton of stuff in place to have the business running for me pretty much in the background, so I could just take time off, but it’s hard to ease back in after a month. It’s like, I don’t know if that’s the best idea. Maybe I should just do a week here and there. But anyway so many things I want to tell you guys about check in with you about.

[00:00:35] First and foremost i’m gonna post something a little later in the AI Facebook group about Berries. So we have a big, huge announcements. You guys know I am the clinical consultant for Berries.

[00:00:49] I’ve been meeting behind the scenes with Tal and Yuval and Gal, who’s Tal’s sister, but also working on this new project with Berries. Basically, we’re gonna go full EHR with Berries. So it’s gonna be the first ever completely AI assisted EHR for therapists created by a therapist with the help of the Berries team.

[00:01:14] We’ve been meeting and literally it’s been just an amazing sort of just dream. Anything you can, that you would want AI to do for you in your EHR or your clinical practice. And that’s what we’re gonna do with this EHR. So it’s super exciting. I’m talking like, you know, log in, the AI checks in with you and says, oh, by the way, did you know that this treatment plan is due?

[00:01:38] And just to let you know, this person hasn’t really met their goals yet. Maybe you need to reevaluate that. Or maybe it’s gonna say, oh my gosh, we just got a denied claim back and I think you need to correct the CPT code based on the denial code. You want me to take care of that for you and it’s just gonna go do it for you.

[00:01:55] Of course with you sort of checking in and doing checks and balances around it, but that’s just the beginning. Like I just literally say to them like, what if we had to do this? And they’re like, I think we can do that. So this CHR is gonna be like beyond anything you can imagine, like imagine having you know the PHQ 9, you’re doing that on a regular basis, or you have the EHR send it out to the client, it comes back. The AI scores it for you. It gives you like scenarios around different scores and analyzes the treatment plan and the progress notes from before and says, okay, this all in a big picture.

[00:02:30] I think we need to maybe consider these interventions, and of course, you as the clinician have complete control that you could say. That’s a great idea or no, that’s really dumb. You have no idea what you’re talking about. But generally this AI is super informed. If anybody here has already used Berries, you know that it’s like already in the clinical notes, the treatment plan, the assessment it’s got a little session assistant that just sits on the side and kind of whispers in your ear.

[00:02:52] If you wanted to, you can consult it even in session now. All of this is gonna be integrated into every single aspect of the EHR that you could imagine. So, you know, think smart scheduling. If you’ve got multiple clinicians, you know, how can the smart AI scheduling know that this clinician does this, this clinician does this, maybe we have a contact form come in, which clinician should we replace it with? It’s gonna replace like an admin team. I mean, it’s gonna do so much for us as therapists. I’m just extremely excited about it.

[00:03:21] So, yeah. If you’re listening to this, I want you to let me know what is your biggest dream? Like if you could have AI in your EHR and doing a bunch of stuff for you, what would you have it do?

[00:03:33] I want to know, because I want to take your dreams and suggestions and put this into this EHR and we think that probably within the next three months we’re gonna have the first version of it available for therapists to just be able to use this as your EHR, so we’re not having to switch back and forth between this EHR and this one and use this AI and, you know, maybe different scheduling tools that you might be using.

[00:03:54] It’s all gonna be integrated, HIPAA compliant AI basically running your practice for you in the background. And I’m just like beyond excited. So I cannot wait to share this with you guys. I’m going to drop a waitlist link. We’ve got the waitlist link. We released it today.

[00:04:09] people on the waitlist of course are gonna have, you know, earlier. Access to new features, discounts, that sort of thing. So make sure you get on the waitlist if this interests you at all, and if you can’t tell, I’m super excited about it and I can’t wait to share it with you guys.

[00:04:22] And I’m so like honored to be the therapist that’s helping develop the whole thing. It’s just really amazing to me that I get to do this and get your feedback and help Berries and help you all in the world, you know, as being therapists so we don’t get as burned out and we can just like do our jobs to our clients and then go on a better day. I’m really excited about that.

[00:04:40] Other things I wanna tell you all about. Let’s see there’s a new thing that came out, a new article. I’ll post it down here below. You guys know, I’d like to just like stay up to date with like AI news and information that’s coming out. So Stanford has launched a new center for responsible and effective AI technology enhancement of treatments for PTSD and the acronym is create C-R-E-A-T-E.

[00:05:06] I’m super interested in this. I know some of you listening might be like, oh God, here we go. Like AI is just gonna take over our whole jobs and everything. Yes, I agree with some of that and it’s a little bit scary, but you guys know I always talk about like, how can we integrate and stay up to date with what’s happening?

[00:05:23] So this initiative is gonna use artificial intelligence to improve the accessibility and quality of PTSD treatment. So it’s centered on the clinician, but using tools, evidence-based AI tools that can help move somebody along with their PTSD much faster than maybe traditional therapy might have done it.

[00:05:40] So the center was established with an $11.5 million grant from NIH, and it’s a collaboration between Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered AI and the School of Medicine. Super interesting. If you get a chance, I would say read this article. Some of the main tools that they’re gonna be focusing on. So they’re focusing on evidence-based like large language model tools that can help with evidence-based PTSD treatment.

[00:06:05] So some of the things that I read about in the article, ’cause I kind of did a deep dive into this, not just this initial article I’ll share, but if you Google it a little bit further, you’ll find more about it. So they’re gonna invest in clinician training around L-L-M based tools which will help therapists learn new evidence-based PTSD treatments.

[00:06:23] So they’re thinking, how can I integrate AI with training clinicians to help clinicians become more proficient with evidence-based PTSD strategies, tools, interventions, techniques, that sort of thing. Think EMDR, you know, all these other ones that are merging. There’s all kinds of brain spotting.

[00:06:38] They’re gonna be focusing on that and how AI can train clinicians to do it faster, better, more effectively, that sort of thing, which I think is super cool, even though it’s a little scary that AI is getting involved in all of this.

[00:06:48] Patient support. So they’re gonna have a tool that will provide between session support for patients to help them practice skills they learn in therapy.

[00:06:57] So if we’re teaching CBT automatic thoughts like how to rewrite your thoughts and your feelings and you know, all the CBT stuff. It’s gonna help clients practice those tools between sessions with integration with the therapist. So the therapist might say, here’s the homework. Give it to the client.

[00:07:12] The client’s, you know, supposed to practice with the AI between sessions and come back and the AI’s gonna report back to the clinician and the client’s gonna report back. Like, how did that go? That sort of thing. Or before, right? We all give homework. Why don’t you try this here as a worksheet. I used to have these worksheets.

[00:07:28] I’d photocopy them and give ’em to my clients. Did anybody do ’em? I don’t know. I mean, we kind of talk about ’em, but this is a more sort of evidence-based way to show that they’re doing their evidence-based homework and that they’re improving or not improving on the interventions that you’re giving, which I think is really cool and just amazing and talking about the Berries EHR. Like all of this stuff can be integrated into this AI native EHR that we’re gonna be developing. I’m really excited about it.

[00:07:54] The other thing, they talked about chatbots for implementation. So chatbots will help mental health teams plan and execute the adoption of new clinical practices. So having really smart chatbots on your clinical team that you’re interacting with, like, okay.

[00:08:11] Gosh, I just met with this client, and we already do this in Berries, if you guys have tried the Berries assistant, but going to the assistant to say, oh, I feel like that intervention around grief kind of fell flat. Can you gimme some other ideas on how to do this based on that training we took last week here at the clinic?

[00:08:27] Or something like that. So it’s gonna be integrated into training clinicians. It’s gonna be great for group practices. Of course, I’m taking this article back to Berries to say, we’ve gotta have stuff like this involved in Berries too for group practices or supervision, that sort of thing. So I know a lot of clinicians that do supervision are using berries already.

[00:08:45] And then the other thing they talked about in the article is on demand expert coaching, so an LLM based coach that will provide immediate consultation and support for therapists working on especially challenging cases. So I don’t know. I mean, think like severe trauma case. Maybe you’re stuck. You have tried everything.

[00:09:06] You can think of these LLM based coaches, large language model based AI coaches. Can come in and say, yes, you did really great with the EMDR and maybe you did the safe space and this with your EMDR techniques, but did you think about this particular EMDR script you might not have tried before, used before?

[00:09:24] Let me train you on this real quick. Maybe that would work and we’d be more helpful with the client next time. So this is what Stanford’s doing with this new initiative that they put forth. I think it’s super interesting and of course it’s gonna be evidence-based research and the information given back to us, like what works, what doesn’t work.

[00:09:42] And of course we’re gonna see this trickle down effect over time of these research studies that are starting at these, you know, high up universities that are really integrating human and AI together to try to help our clients.

[00:09:54] So I’m excited about it. I know some of us might be listening and think it’s really scary and kind of freak you out a little bit. ‘Cause I’ve heard both sides of it. You know, I don’t want AI involved in clinical treatment at all, but it’s innovative and who knows, it might make our outcomes a lot better. So I’m super interested in it. I think it’s really cool.

[00:10:10] But anyway, that’s it for today. I hope you guys enjoyed this. Go ahead and comment down below. Let me know if you have any questions, thoughts, concerns about any of this. And of course the links that I’ve talked about today will be down in the show notes. So let me know what you think and also let me know what you wish you could have in your AI native EHR, because we’re gonna put it in there for you. Talk to you guys later. Bye.