Your medical provider might be recording your mental health care visits – The Markup

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Your medical provider might be recording your mental health care visits

By Roxsy Lin for American Community Media

June 16, 2026 8:00 a.m. UTC

Viewable online at<br>https://themarkup.org/privacy/2026/06/16/your-medical-provider-might-be-recording-your-mental-health-care-visits

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In 2024, Kaiser Permanente announced the rollout of Abridge. Described in a press release as “ambient listening technology,” the AI-powered scribe is designed to help clinicians including mental health providers securely capture clinical notes during patient visits.

But what the description fails to indicate is that the tool records entire medical appointments, including deeply personal mental health sessions.

During these sessions, mental health professionals are required to obtain patients’ consent before using the tool. However, as shared by multiple providers, that consent process does not include explanations about how the information is handled. Nor does it say how long and where recordings are stored, or who has access to the data.

This happens in part because that information has not been shared with providers, despite their attempts to obtain it.

↩︎ link<br>‘Empty assurances’

Ilana Marcucci-Morris chose not to use the platform with her patients. She is a licensed clinical social worker with Kaiser psychiatry in Oakland, California. She is also a member of a bargaining committee. In that role, she regularly meets with various Kaiser representatives, including Northern California’s director of mental health.

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Marcucci-Morris describes how, during those meetings, she and other committee members have asked questions about patient privacy protections, HIPAA compliance, and the safeguards in place for the use of these technologies.

According to her, the response from leadership has often been empty assurances: “We are compliant. That’s it. That’s all you need to know. We vet the technology, therapist. Don’t worry. That’s not your job. We have tech experts. That’s their job,” Marcucci-Morris said in an interview with American Community Media.

“They won’t show us, right? And my feeling is, if you have nothing to hide and you’re doing it totally […] ethically, then you would show us, prove it. They can’t, and they won’t, and they declined to when we ask.”

Ligia Pacheco is a psychiatric social worker who provides remote therapy services for Kaiser patients in Southern California. She said Kaiser also refused her requests to provide further explanations.

In an interview with American Community Media, Pacheco recalled how a coworker once raised concerns to a supervisor. The response: that “it’s unprofessional for you to provide your personal beliefs on AI in our work setting.”

For Pacheco, “that leads to just low morale, no space to advocate for patients. We’re supposed to be the voice of patients who are coming in their most vulnerable state. And we can’t even be that voice for them, so we feel discouraged.”

↩︎ link<br>“Patient after patient after patient”

Providers have been required to see more patients in recent years. That creates intense pressure to keep up with documentation and workloads, Marcucci-Morris highlighted.

“You’re just like seeing patient after patient after patient after patient with barely enough time to go to the bathroom, eat a snack […] get some fresh air,” she said.

According to Marcucci-Morris, refusing to manage the increased patient volume can be treated as a failure to meet job expectations. It may also lead to disciplinary action.

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As a union steward, she said she often represents colleagues during workplace investigations related to delayed documentation or difficulties managing heavy caseloads. In those situations, she said management frequently recommends the use of Abridge to save time and avoid further discipline.

In her view, the providers she knows who use the technology are not doing so because they support or trust it. Rather, it is because they feel pressured to protect their jobs and comply with workplace demands.

“I consider that to be coercive because you’re putting someone in a position to either lose their job or use the software. That’s another choice that’s under duress,” she explained.

↩︎ link<br>Provider, patient concerns

Brian Hoberman is chief information officer for The Permanente Medical Group. In a Kaiser press release, he said, “Abridge’s advanced technology...