ClariNote Local
A Mac app for solo therapists, family physicians, and small-clinic practitioners that records a session (with a built-in consent cue), transcribes it entirely on-device using local ASR models, and drafts a SOAP, DAP, or BIRP note that never leaves the laptop.
Solo therapists, family physicians, and small-clinic practitioners who dictate clinical notes and cannot send PHI to the cloud
- On-device ASR via Qwen3-ASR / Whisper running through MLX with no network calls
- Built-in note templates for SOAP, DAP, BIRP, and progress-note formats with auto-fill from transcript
- Verbal-consent overlay that captures the patient's consent recording before transcription begins
- Session-searchable encrypted note vault with optional end-to-end iCloud sync
Local ASR models like Qwen3-ASR now run smoothly on Apple Silicon, removing the technical excuse to send patient audio to cloud dictation services — and HIPAA/PHIPA enforcement is tightening, so clinicians are actively shopping for compliant alternatives.
AI scribe category is on fire — Freed at $13M ARR (+992% YoY), Ambience at $30M ARR, Scribeberry claims 30,000+ clinicians, indicating strong clinician demand even before carving out the privacy-conscious subset who want true on-device.Abridge vs Ambience vs Freed | Sacra ↗The AI Medical Scribe trusted by 30,000+ clinicians ↗
Space is crowded with cloud scribes (Abridge, Nabla, Freed, Ambience, Scribeberry, ScribeMD, Wren, QuickScript, Berries), but truly local-only Apple-Silicon-native clinical tools that never send audio to a vendor cloud are genuinely sparse — OpenWhispr and Qwen Scribe target general dictation, not SOAP/DAP/BIRP notes.On-Device AI Voice Dictation 2026: Local vs Cloud Processing Compared ↗Voice Data Privacy: Keep Your Audio On-Device | OpenWhispr ↗
Market pricing ranges $69–$2000/mo; therapist-targeted Wren Clinical and Scribeberry charge around $99/mo, but solo therapists are price-sensitive and typically cap at $30–$50/mo, limiting revenue per user vs enterprise competitors.AI Medical Scribe Tools: A Comprehensive Price Comparison ↗HIPAA-Compliant AI Scribe: What to Look For - Jane ↗
Tailwinds are durable: tightening HIPAA/PHIPA enforcement, growing state privacy laws, and rapidly improving local model capability (Qwen3-ASR via MLX now runs natively on M1–M4 with real-time factor ~0.08) push clinicians toward on-device for years.Qwen3‑ASR Runs Natively on Apple Silicon via MLX for Full-Speed Speech Recognition ↗Qwen3-ASR Swift: On-Device ASR + TTS for Apple Silicon ↗
Buildable: mlx-qwen3-asr is on PyPI with a Swift architecture write-up; the heavy lifting (local ASR, speaker diarization, SOAP/DAP/BIRP templating, consent UX, Mac native app polish) is non-trivial but tractable for a 2–3 person team in months.mlx-qwen3-asr · PyPI ↗GitHub - QwenLM/Qwen3-ASR ↗