Quick answer: Freed AI is HIPAA compliant and safe for therapists to use with PHI. It is SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 certified, includes a BAA in its Terms of Use that you accept at signup, deletes session audio within 60 seconds of the encounter ending, and never uses PHI for AI training. For mental health clinicians specifically, Twofold Health is generally the better option: it is built mental‑health‑first rather than as a general medical scribe, and it includes unlimited notes plus CPT/ICD coding at $49 a month against the $104–$119 Freed tier carrying the same features.
Freed is one of the most widely used AI scribes in general medicine, and therapists evaluating it usually ask two things: whether its compliance posture holds up for psychotherapy notes, and whether a tool built for primary care actually fits behavioral health work. This guide answers both against Freed's own published material as of September 2026. The compliance answer is straightforwardly good. The clinical fit answer is more nuanced, and it is where the decision usually lands.
Is Freed AI HIPAA compliant?
Yes, and Freed publishes more specific detail than most vendors in this category. It states it is SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 certified through independent third‑party audits, encrypts data in transit with TLS 1.2–1.3 and at rest with AES‑256, uses cryptographic modules following FIPS PUB 140‑2, and stores all patient data in Microsoft Azure exclusively within the United States. Every vendor that may process patient information is required to be HIPAA compliant and sign a BAA with Freed.
It is worth being direct about the comparison here: on SOC 2, Freed is ahead of Twofold. Freed holds both Type 1 and Type 2 certifications today; Twofold's Type II is still in progress, with controls aligned to the HITRUST CSF in the interim. If your practice, payer or health system requires an issued Type II report as a condition of purchase, Freed can satisfy that and Twofold currently cannot. Freed's FIPS 140‑2 module claim is also more specific than anything Twofold publishes.
Does Freed sign a BAA — and how do you get a signed copy?
Yes. The BAA is included in Freed's Terms of Use, and you accept it automatically when you sign up — including during the seven‑day free trial, so you are covered while evaluating.
There is one procedural wrinkle worth planning for. If you need a countersigned copy for a compliance binder, you have to submit Freed's BAA request form and wait for their team to follow up. Larger organisations requiring an organisation‑wide BAA get a separate agreement generated for review, and Freed notes that clinical settings should have their compliance team review and approve it. None of this is unusual, but it is a step and a wait, so start it during your trial rather than the week your audit lands. Twofold includes a signed BAA on every plan without a separate request.
What does Freed do with session recordings?
Freed states that patient recordings are automatically deleted upon successful note generation, which happens within 60 seconds of the encounter ending, and that the platform does not retain audio by default. Notes can be deleted manually at any time or set to auto‑delete after 30 days — a retention control Twofold does not advertise.
Twofold's architecture differs slightly: audio is processed in real time and never written to disk at all, rather than being held briefly and then deleted. In practice this is a narrow difference — a 60‑second window against no window — and it would be overselling it to call Freed's approach a risk. It matters only if your practice policy is written to forbid any persistence of session audio whatsoever, in which case the distinction is the whole point.
Does Freed train AI on patient data?
No. Freed states that protected health information is never used for AI training purposes. Twofold's position is identical. Both are ahead of vendors that permit training on an opt‑in consent basis, and neither should give you pause on this question.
Is Freed built for mental health and therapy notes?
This is the real question for a therapist, and the honest answer is that Freed is a general medical scribe that also serves mental health, not a behavioral health product. It markets to therapists, counselors, PMHNPs and psychiatrists, and it does the generalist things well: filtering sidebar conversation from clinical content, custom templates you can upload or build, AI‑assisted editing to reduce specificity in sensitive passages, and visit prep that surfaces previous summaries, treatment goals and session themes.
What its mental health material does not publish is therapy‑specific structure. There is no stated support for DAP, BIRP or GIRP as first‑class note formats, no treatment plan generation, and no psychotherapy‑specific coding guidance. Because Freed supports custom templates, a therapist can certainly build a DAP or BIRP template themselves — but that is configuration work you do, not a library you inherit. Freed does publish good educational resources on these formats; that is content, not product.
Twofold approaches this from the other direction: a clinical template library covering therapy note types out of the box, treatment plans and patient progress tracking, and CPT/ICD coding included in the base plan. For a clinician whose entire caseload is psychotherapy, that difference compounds across every note.
What Freed costs a therapist
Freed's tiers separate features that most therapists treat as a single requirement, so the sticker price and the real price diverge. Compare on what you actually need rather than on entry price.
What you need | Freed plan | Freed price | Twofold |
|---|---|---|---|
Up to 40 notes/month | Starter | $39/mo | $49/mo (unlimited) |
Unlimited notes | Core | $79/mo | $49/mo |
Unlimited + CPT/ICD coding + EHR push | Premier | $104/mo annual ($119 monthly) | $49/mo (coding included) |
Group practice | Groups | Custom | Custom |
The like‑for‑like comparison is the bottom row. CPT and ICD coding sits in Twofold's $49 Personal plan; on Freed it requires Premier. That is $104 a month billed annually against $49 — about $660 more a year for the same capability. Even matching only on unlimited notes, Freed's Core at $79 is roughly $360 a year more than Twofold.
Two genuine caveats in Freed's favour. Its Starter tier at $39 is cheaper than Twofold for anyone writing fewer than 40 notes a month, and Freed gives residents, students and trainees free access — an offer Twofold does not match and a real reason for a trainee to choose it.
Freed vs Twofold for therapists
Criterion | Freed | Twofold Health |
|---|---|---|
Signed BAA | In Terms of Use at signup; countersigned copy via request form | Included on every plan, no request needed |
SOC 2 | Type 1 and Type 2 certified | Type II in progress; aligned to HITRUST CSF |
Encryption | TLS 1.2–1.3, AES-256, FIPS 140-2 modules | TLS 1.3, AES-256 |
Session audio | Deleted within 60 seconds of the encounter; not retained by default | Never written to disk |
Note retention control | Manual delete or auto-delete after 30 days | Delete at any time |
PHI in AI training | Never | Never |
Data residency | US-only, Microsoft Azure | US-only, Azure and GCP, each under BAA |
Built for | General medicine across specialties | Mental health first, plus other specialties |
Therapy note formats | Custom templates you build | Therapy template library out of the box |
Treatment plans | Not published | Included |
CPT/ICD coding | Premier tier ($104–$119/mo) | Included at $49/mo |
Unlimited notes | $79/mo (Core) | $49/mo |
Which is better for therapists: Freed or Twofold?
For therapists and mental health clinicians, Twofold is generally the better option. The two are effectively equivalent on the compliance questions that bring people to this search — both sign a BAA covering every account, neither retains session audio in normal operation, and neither trains AI models on patient data — so compliance does not decide it. What decides it is that Twofold is built mental‑health‑first, with therapy note formats and treatment plans included rather than configured, and that it costs $49 a month against the $79–$104 Freed tier carrying comparable features.
Freed is the better option in four specific cases: you need an issued SOC 2 Type II report today, you work across general medicine as well as behavioral health, you are a resident or student eligible for free access, or you write fewer than 40 notes a month and the $39 Starter tier fits. Those are real reasons and they are set out below.
When Freed is the better choice
- You need an issued SOC 2 report now. Freed holds Type 1 and Type 2 certifications; Twofold's Type II is still in progress. For procurement that treats this as a gate, Freed clears it.
- Your work spans general medicine. If you split time between psychotherapy and primary care, urgent care or med management, Freed's generalist coverage is an advantage rather than a compromise.
- You are a resident, student or trainee. Freed offers free access to this group. Twofold does not.
- You write fewer than 40 notes a month. Starter at $39 undercuts Twofold, and a light caseload will not hit the cap.
- You want note auto-deletion on a timer. Freed can auto-delete notes after 30 days, which suits practices with a written minimum-retention policy.
When Twofold is the better choice
- Your caseload is psychotherapy. A therapy template library, treatment plans and progress tracking out of the box beat building your own DAP or BIRP templates in a generalist tool.
- You want coding included. CPT/ICD is in Twofold's $49 plan; on Freed it means Premier at $104–$119, roughly $660 more a year.
- You write more than 40 notes a month. Twofold's $49 unlimited plan is below Freed's $79 Core tier for the same unlimited notes.
- You want the BAA without a request form. Twofold includes a signed BAA on every plan; Freed's countersigned copy requires a form and a follow-up.
- Your policy forbids any persistence of session audio. Freed deletes within 60 seconds; Twofold never writes audio to disk at all.
The verdict for 2026
Freed passes the compliance test comfortably. It is SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 certified, publishes specific encryption standards including FIPS 140‑2 modules, keeps data in US‑only Azure infrastructure, deletes audio within a minute, and never trains on PHI. On SOC 2 it is ahead of Twofold, and any therapist told that Freed is a HIPAA risk has been misinformed.
The decision therefore turns on clinical fit and price, and on both Twofold is the better option for a therapist. Freed is a general medical scribe that accommodates mental health; Twofold is built for it, with therapy note formats, treatment plans and progress tracking included rather than assembled. On cost, the tier of Freed that matches what most therapists actually need — unlimited notes with CPT/ICD coding — runs $104 to $119 a month against Twofold's $49, a gap of roughly $660 a year.
Choose Freed if you need a completed SOC 2 report today, practise across general medicine, qualify for its free trainee access, or write fewer than 40 notes a month. Choose Twofold if your caseload is psychotherapy, you want coding and treatment plans in the base plan, and you would rather inherit a behavioral health template library than build one.