Nabla vs Upheal: Medical AI scribe vs mental health EHR compared
Nabla is a clinical AI layer for health systems. It captures the visit, generates a structured note, supports dictation anywhere in the chart, and suggests E/M and ICD-10 codes. It is deployed inside Epic, Oracle Health, athenahealth and other hospital EHRs. Behavioral health is one of the specialty templates it offers, alongside cardiology, emergency medicine and dozens of others. It is a template in a general medicine product, not a product built around therapy.
Upheal is an AI-native EHR built for mental health practitioners. The notes, the treatment plans, the schedule, the client record and the claims all live in one product.
The difference is not that one has better AI. It is that Nabla assumes you already have an EHR and Upheal assumes you need one. For a therapist in private practice, that assumption is the whole decision.
Every Nabla claim on this page was checked against Nabla's own pages on 5 September 2026, and the compliance claims were re-checked on 15 September 2026. Where Nabla does not publish something, this page says so rather than filling the gap.
Quick verdict
- Nabla is for clinicians inside an organisation that already runs an EHR. If Epic or athenahealth is the system of record and you want ambient documentation, dictation and coding on top of it, Nabla is built for exactly that.
- Upheal is for therapists in private practice who do not have an EHR department behind them and want the notes, the calendar, the client record and the claims in one place.
Two different bets on where the AI sits
Nabla's bet is that the chart is a given. Health systems are not replacing Epic, so the AI should embed into whatever the clinician already uses and disappear. That is why Nabla ships ambient documentation, a dictation layer that works at the cursor in any EHR, and coding suggestions you paste into your own system. It is a deliberate design decision, and for a hospital it is the right one.
Upheal's bet is that a solo therapist has no Epic to embed into. Buying a scribe and an EHR separately means two subscriptions and two databases that never talk. So the AI and the record are the same product: the note is generated against the treatment plan, and the assistant can be asked about the caseload rather than about one visit.
Neither bet is wrong. They are aimed at different buyers. The question for a private practice therapist is whether you want to run a second system alongside Nabla, because Nabla does not include one.
Differences between Upheal and Nabla
| Feature | Upheal | Nabla |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | AI-native EHRBuilt for behavioral health | Clinical AI layerScribe, dictation and coding for health systems |
| Pricing | $1/session$69 cap per month | Not publishedSales conversation required |
| AI notes | Included in the per-session price | Core product |
| Ways to capture a session | Ambient, dictation, typed summary, upload | Ambient and dictationDictated notes run 20 to 30 minutes |
| AI beyond the note | Conversational assistantAsk about any client, any time. Assistant Pro $39/mo add-on | Note-level onlyMagic edit, regeneration, CDI nudges, letters to referring providers, patient instructions |
| E/M code suggestions | No | Surfaced in the encounterICD-10 suggestions too |
| Scheduling | Yes | No |
| Client records and portal | Yes | No |
| Telehealth | Yes, free built-in | NoCaptures video calls on other platforms via its extension |
| Insurance claims | Yes$0.30 per claim, $0.15 per eligibility check | NoCodes are suggested, nothing is filed |
| Treatment plans | YesLinked to session notes | No |
| Documentation checking | Compliance checkerAudits against Aetna and Optum standards | CDI nudgesClinical documentation integrity, not payer standards |
| Intake and practice forms | Fully customizableAI import from PDF | No |
| Secure client messaging | Yes, with AI drafts | No messaging channelGenerates patient instructions to send yourself |
| Hospital EHR integrations | NoUpheal is the EHR | Epic, Oracle Health, athenahealth and others |
| Session data retention | Audio deleted by default once notes are generated | 14-day storage policyDuration configurable in settings |
| AI training consent | Opt-in from both therapist and client | De-identified data used for model trainingPer their US terms. Patient audio excluded, no opt-out described |
| Languages | 35 languages | Over 35 languages |
| Jurisdictions covered | HIPAA, PHIPA and PIPEDA, GDPR and DPA | HIPAA, GDPRThe jurisdictions Nabla names |
| Independent attestation | SOC 2 Type II | SOC 2 Type II + ISO 27001 |
| Free plan | Unlimited notes and telehealthSOAP, DAP and Intake note types | Free signup advertisedTerms not published |
AI documentation and what happens after the note
Both products generate a good note. The difference starts once the note exists.
Nabla does a fair amount after generation. You can regenerate a single section, refine a note with written instructions, merge diagnoses in the assessment and plan, pull orders into a tab for copying, generate a letter to a referring or consulting provider, and produce patient-friendly instructions as a post-visit recap. There are CDI nudges for documentation completeness and E/M code suggestions. All of it fires on one encounter, and none of it reaches across a caseload.
Upheal's assistant works the other way round. You ask it in your own words, about any client, at any time, and it answers from the clinical record rather than from a single transcript. You can ask which of your Thursday clients have missed consecutive sessions, or what a client's open treatment goals are before you walk into the room. Assistant Pro is a $39/month add-on that removes the usage limits and adds pre-built workflows.
Nabla also has something Upheal does not: a dictation product that works at the cursor anywhere in the chart, with voice commands, dot phrases and support for PowerMic and SpeechMike hardware. If you dictate all day across multiple systems, that is a better tool for the job than anything Upheal offers.
Billing and coding
Nabla suggests codes. It does not file anything. Their own help centre puts it plainly: the E/M code is a suggestion that you copy and enter in your EHR, and nothing is submitted to a payer automatically. There is no scheduling, no client ledger and no claims pipeline.
Upheal submits. Eligibility checks, claims and ERA processing run inside the platform at $0.30 per claim submission and $0.15 per eligibility check, with no monthly billing fee. A rejected claim that you resubmit is not charged again. Card payments are 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction.
If you use Nabla today, you are running a separate EHR alongside it to handle the schedule and the money. Upheal collapses that into one system.
Pricing
Nabla does not publish a price. There is no pricing page, and every call to action on their site routes to a sales conversation. Their homepage advertises a free signup, but the terms of that offer are not published either. We are not going to invent a number: if you are evaluating Nabla, ask them for written pricing and ask specifically whether it covers dictation and coding or only ambient notes.
Upheal is $1 per session, capped at $69 per month. AI notes are included in that price rather than sold as a separate add-on, which is unusual in this category. At a typical 40 to 60 sessions a month that is $40 to $60. Assistant Pro is a $39/month add-on. There is a free plan with unlimited notes and HIPAA-compliant telehealth, and a 30-day full-access trial with no credit card required. Self-serve AI migration from any EHR is free, and it recreates clients, notes, session history, note templates and intake forms rather than just importing a spreadsheet.
Students and associate-level therapists get 50% off their first 12 months. Group practice pricing depends on the size of the practice and associates are discounted, so talk to sales for a quote.
Privacy and data
The answer on AI training is not in Nabla's privacy policy. It is in their terms of service. Section 9 of those terms, which were last updated on 22 June 2026, states that Nabla may collect, process and use de-identified data transmitted through your use of the services to train its internal artificial intelligence model, and may disclose that de-identified data. De-identification follows HIPAA. The same clause excludes patient audio.
Two things follow from that. The consent is given by whoever accepts the terms, which is you and not your client, and the terms describe no way to opt out. Separately, their privacy policy permits de-identified health information to be shared with service providers and with academic researchers and institutions. Their help centre describes a 14-day storage policy with a configurable duration and encounters held locally on the device.
None of that is unusual for enterprise clinical software, and excluding patient audio is a real protection. But it is a different arrangement from consent, and it is worth reading before you sign rather than after a client asks.
Upheal's position is published. Session audio is deleted by default once your notes are generated. Upheal does not use session data to train AI unless you and your client both choose it. You can read the full consent-first approach before you sign up, and point a client at it if they ask.
On certifications the two are close. Nabla is SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certified, and names HIPAA and GDPR on its security page. Upheal is HIPAA compliant, PHIPA and PIPEDA compliant, GDPR and DPA compliant, SOC 2 Type II certified, and continuously externally tested. Upheal signs a BAA with every practice. Nabla holds ISO 27001 and Upheal does not, so if your organisation asks for that specific certification, Nabla meets that requirement and Upheal does not.
What therapists think
Clinicians using Nabla tend to praise the attention it frees up and flag the editing it creates:
"It does allow me to listen to the patients better so I'm not worried about writing things down."
Reddit, r/Psychiatry
Among tools built for private practice therapy, independent reviewers have put Upheal ahead:
"Upheal comes out as the winner in terms of easing the burden of documentation."
Hannah Weisman, PhD
Who should choose Nabla, and who should choose Upheal
Choose Nabla if:
- You work in a hospital or multi-specialty organisation with an existing EHR
- You dictate heavily and want a voice layer that works across every system you touch
- You want E/M and ICD-10 coding suggestions attached to the note
- Your organisation requires ISO 27001
Choose Upheal if:
- You are in private practice and do not want to buy an EHR and a scribe separately
- You want notes written against the treatment plan rather than against one transcript alone
- You want to ask questions about your caseload, not just about the session you just finished
- You want a compliance checker that catches documentation gaps before the payer does
- You want to submit claims from the same place you write the note
- You want to know the price before you talk to anyone
Frequently asked questions
Is Nabla an EHR?
No. Nabla is a clinical AI layer that sits on top of an EHR. It does ambient documentation, dictation and coding suggestions, and integrates with Epic, Oracle Health, athenahealth and others. It has no scheduling, client records, telehealth or claims submission, so a therapist using Nabla also needs a separate EHR.
Does Nabla only work with ambient recording?
No. Alongside ambient capture, Nabla has a dictated note feature and a separate dictation product that works at the cursor inside the EHR. Their help centre puts dictated notes at 20 to 30 minutes and ambient encounters at up to three hours.
Does Nabla train its AI on session data?
Yes, on de-identified data. Section 9 of Nabla's US terms of service, which were last updated on 22 June 2026, states that Nabla may collect, process and use de-identified data transmitted through your use of the services to train its internal artificial intelligence model, and may disclose that de-identified data. De-identification follows HIPAA and the clause excludes patient audio. The consent is given by the account holder accepting the terms rather than by the client, and the terms describe no opt-out. Upheal does not use session data to train AI unless you and your client both choose it.
Which compliance standards do Nabla and Upheal meet?
Nabla is SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certified, and names HIPAA and GDPR on its security page. Upheal is HIPAA compliant, PHIPA and PIPEDA compliant, GDPR and DPA compliant, SOC 2 Type II certified, and continuously externally tested. Nabla holds ISO 27001 and Upheal does not, so if your organisation requires that certification, Nabla meets it and Upheal does not.
How much does Nabla cost?
Nabla does not publish pricing. There is no pricing page and every call to action routes to a sales conversation, so any figure you find elsewhere is unverified. Upheal is $1 per session, capped at $69 per month, with AI notes included in that price.
Can Upheal replace Nabla and my current EHR?
For most private practice therapists, yes. Upheal covers AI notes, treatment planning, scheduling, billing, intake forms, telehealth, client records and insurance claims in one platform. It does not replace dictation across a hospital EHR or E/M code suggestions, so if you rely on those, Nabla is doing something Upheal does not.
Sources: Nabla claims are taken from its homepage, dictation product page, security page, privacy policy, terms of service and help centre, all checked on 5 September 2026. The compliance and certification claims were re-checked against Nabla's security page and trust centre on 15 September 2026. Nabla publishes different instruments by region; the training clause quoted here is from the US terms, and the non-US data protection agreement contains no equivalent clause. Where this page says Nabla does not have something, that rests on four surfaces: its site navigation, its rendered feature set, the help-centre feature index and the FAQ taxonomy. Nabla does not publish pricing, and this page quotes no price for it. Upheal claims are taken from the Upheal support center and pricing page on the same date. Pricing and features change; confirm current terms with each vendor before deciding.
