🎙️ Introducing Voice AI Intake for Patient Questionnaires
By: Empathia Editorial Team
May 10, 2025
For physicians, time spent on intake forms isn’t just administrative, it’s lost momentum.
Whether it’s a first visit or a follow-up, reviewing patient-provided information often means flipping between EMR screens, deciphering handwriting, or chasing incomplete histories. But what if patients could provide their intake in their own words and you received it as a clean, structured summary?
That’s the idea behind Empathia’s new Voice AI Intake: a smarter, more conversational way to collect clinical context before the visit starts.
🤔 What Is Voice AI Intake?
Voice AI Intake is a feature that allows patients to complete intake forms using their voice, on their phone, tablet, or clinic iPad. Instead of checking boxes or filling out lengthy paperwork, patients respond to an interview-style questionnaire, and Empathia’s AI converts it into a summary for review.
It feels more natural to the patient. And it delivers more insight to the physician.
🧠 Why Intake Still Needs Reinvention
The standard form-based intake process doesn’t always work:
It assumes a high degree of literacy, tech comfort, or energy, often not the case
It flattens nuance (“yes/no” answers where a story is more helpful)
It can be inconsistent across providers or clinics
That’s why we designed a system where patients speak, and the system listens - literally.
💬 How It Works
You send the patient an intake link (before or at the appointment)
The patient is guided through a specialty-specific voice questionnaire (e.g., for family medicine, ENT, psychiatry, etc.)
Empathia captures and transcribes their responses using medical-grade AI
You receive a structured intake summary, including:
Chief concern
Medication history
Allergies
Social or psychosocial factors
Review of systems (where applicable)
🔎 What Makes Empathia’s Intake Different?
✅ Customizable by Specialty
Voice questionnaires are tailored to the visit type (e.g., new consult, post-op follow-up, med refill) and to the physician’s specialty—so a psychiatrist and an allergist won’t get the same prompts.
✅ Asynchronous + Flexible
Patients can complete intake at home or in the waiting room. The summary’s ready when you are.
✅ Structured, Not Just Transcribed
This isn’t a raw audio dump. Empathia breaks down the responses into usable segments, aligned with how you document in your EMR.
👂 What You’ll Hear from Patients
“I actually found it easier to just talk.”
“It reminded me of how the nurse used to ask questions—but now I can do it on my own time.”
“I felt like I could explain my symptoms better this way.”
Empathia was designed to respect the patient voice and give physicians better input, not just more of it.
🩺 How Physicians Are Using It
Family Medicine: Gathering context before wellness or mental health visits
ENT: Pre-surgical consults with symptom timelines and severity
Psychiatry: Intake of trauma history, substance use, and medication side effects
Telehealth: Pre-call prep when you don’t have time for a nurse-led intake
And because Empathia integrates with your charting workflow, you can use the intake summary as part of your SOAP note or as a standalone document.
🔐 What About Privacy?
Patient responses are encrypted end-to-end
Summaries are stored only for as long as necessary for the physician to review
All interactions are HIPAA and PIPEDA compliant
🗣️ Ready to Hear Intake Differently?
Empathia’s Voice AI Intake is now available to all clinicians using our AI medical scribe. It’s designed to reduce admin, deepen patient context, and help you walk into every visit better prepared.
