(C) Verite News New Orleans This story was originally published by Verite News New Orleans and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . LCMC Health using AI software without patient consent [1] ['Madhri Yehiya', 'More Madhri Yehiya', 'Verite News New Orleans'] Date: 2026-01-22 The audio version of this story is AI generated and is not human reviewed. It may contain errors or inaccuracies. As a certified emergency medicine physician of more than 20 years, Damon Dietrich understands the severity of physician burnout in the health care field. Over the last year and a half, Dietrich, chief medical information officer at LCMC Health, has helped implement a pilot partnership with Nabla Technologies, a French tech company, to deploy AI-powered software across all LCMC hospitals, urgent care facilities and clinics to reduce the burden of clinical documentation that providers are typically responsible for completing. “The doctors could not be happier,” he said. “Those pilot doctors were like, holding on to their license. They’re like, ‘You cannot take this tool away from me, 100%.’” LCMC’s pilot program with Nabla first ran in October 2024 and was fully approved by hospital leadership in August of last year. Since November, Nabla has been deployed for use by physicians, advanced practitioners and trainees across the hospital system and is integrated with Epic, the medical records software LCMC uses to store patient records. Before Nabla, LCMC providers had to manually type extensive notes into a patient’s online portal and take note of the length and complexity of a hospital visit for health insurance billing purposes, sometimes for dozens of patients per day in an emergency room setting. “The electronic medical record has gotten more burdensome over time with the documentation requirements and governmental regulations,” Dietrich told Verite News. “It becomes incredibly burdensome on a doctor to even remember what they need and what they’re expected to document.” Despite Nabla’s ability to greatly reduce workload for providers, an AI health care ethics expert, the nurse’s union at University Medical Center (UMC) — operated by LCMC Health — and even Nabla’s co-founder have expressed concerns about the use of AI tools without informed patient consent. LCMC patients are not being told that their medical visits are being recorded and analyzed by artificial intelligence, nor how their data may or may not be used to train Nabla’s software. Dietrich said LCMC providers initially asked for patient consent and would explain that using Nabla allows them to pay more attention to their patients. But following approval from the hospital’s compliance office, he said providers no longer obtain informed consent as Nabla has become an automatic part of services and patients are already consenting to treatment by coming in for care. After review by the hospital’s legal counsel, an LCMC Health spokesperson confirmed that asking for consent is not required in this case because patients were previously not asked for consent for other types of clinical note-taking — electronic or otherwise — that LCMC has used. LCMC Health also confirmed to Verite News that the use of an AI assistant is not noted in the consent forms patients are asked to sign prior to a medical visit. According to the company, Nabla does not store the audio of medical visits and uses “de-identified patient data” that cannot be traced back to a patient. Only data that a clinician opts into providing is used to train the AI assistant. In a statement, Nabla cited Louisiana’s one-party consent recording laws, meaning that only providers must legally serve as the consenting party to a recorded medical visit, after which the audio is processed but not stored. LCMC Health did not reply to Verite News’ questions on whether LCMC providers are opting in to provide Nabla with anonymized patient data. An LCMC Health sign outside of University Medical Center New Orleans on January 16, 2026. The company is employing an AI software to assist doctors with note-taking, though they are using it without patient consent. Credit: Christiana Botic/Verite News and Catchlight Local/Report for America The question of consent Delphine Groll, co-founder and COO of Nabla, said she always recommends providers ask for patient consent and explain that they are using Nabla as a way to pay more attention to their patients as opposed to taking notes. “You say to a patient, ‘OK, I’m using Nabla. It’s going to help me to take notes in real time so I will focus on what you are going to say. I will ask more questions. I will look at you. I will really be listening to you, and I will pay more attention,’” Groll said. The clinical documentation created by Nabla takes note of a patient’s chief complaint, symptoms, medical history, medications and allergies, the clinician’s assessment and next steps. The note can be organized based on a clinician’s preferences and can be used by providers in more than 55 medical specialities. The AI assistant is also trained on multiple languages and dialects as well as industry-available data in order to understand medical terminology and billing for services provided. @veritenewsnola LCMC Health is now using AI-powered software called Nabla to reduce the burden of clinical documentation that providers are typically responsible for completing. Despite Nabla’s ability to greatly reduce workload for providers, there are concerns about the use of AI tools without informed patient consent. LCMC patients are not being told that their medical visits are being recorded and analyzed by artificial intelligence, nor how their data may or may not be used to train Nabla’s software. Video by Madhri Yehiya ♬ original sound – Verite News New Orleans – Verite News New Orleans Groll said she finds it important for patients to feel like “AI is not scary” and that it can instead be helpful in daily life. “If you are not proactive with these kinds of topics — privacy, transparency, confidentiality, reliability — you are not building trust,” she said. “And I really think if you want your tool to be adopted at scale, you need to build trust.” Groll said the fact that Nabla does not store the audio of a patient visit sets the company apart from most competitors. Tatiana Lin, director of business strategy and innovation at the Kansas Health Institute, a member of the National Network of Public Health Institutes, said AI has proved the potential to assist health care providers with a variety of tasks, including clinical note-taking. Lin, an expert in the ethical use of AI in health care, said that because there is currently no federal standard requiring patient consent and disclosure for AI tools, every health care facility is making their own decision on whether or not to inform patients how their data may be used or stored by AI. “Patients feel very divided on AI technology,” she said. “So it feels like if they find out [later] that it’s been used, it creates distrust. And we know that trust between patients and providers is critical.” Lin declined to comment on Nabla specifically, but noted that creating a reliable AI-powered health care tool means ensuring the datasets used to train the software are as robust and diverse as possible to minimize biased results. In order to be as ethical as possible, Lin said that human data should be stored securely and with informed consent, and providers should be able to clearly explain to patients how their data can be used. Doing so, in her opinion, protects patient autonomy and promotes trust in the health care system. Billing implications One of the primary uses of the Nabla assistant, according to Dietrich and Groll, is streamlining billing by reducing the burden on providers to figure out “coding,” or identifying, each of the services provided during a hospital visit for billing purposes. But it’s not clear whether that will result in lower costs for patients. Lin said it is too early to say whether clinical AI note-taking tools will on average increase or decrease the cost of care for patients. In a statement to Verite News, Groll said only that Nabla will boost billing “accuracy.” “With Nabla, providers create more accurate and complete notes,” Groll wrote. “That means the right details are captured to support coding and billing, reduce missed charges, and help ensure appropriate reimbursement for patients. When a code or key detail is missed, payers may need to chase providers for clarification, and patients can experience delays, confusion, or a bill that doesn’t reflect the care they received.” LCMC did not answer questions about whether the use of Nabla has increased or decreased medical bills on average. Nabla stood out among its competitors because of the quality of its product and employees, Dietrich said. The note-taker did not strike him as “vaporware” — technology that cannot do what it is supposed to do. “You got to look out for companies that are just trying to get into the AI space. They grab the large language model off the shelf … and now they want to get in the AI world and make their fortune,” he said. “You really can screw up … and go with some companies that are not going to be around in three years because all the VC funding is going to run out.” Groll said that in early meetings with LCMC officials, she told them that her competitors would overstate the ability of their AI tools, but that she is not afraid to be honest about Nabla’s capabilities and shortcomings. Mixed reviews from the medical community The nurses’ union at UMC has gone on strike five times since first organizing for improved working conditions two years ago. In a statement from the nurse’s union at UMC, behavioral health nurse Kisha Montes said “common-sense” measures such as safe staffing, workplace violence prevention and involving nurses in practice decisions “are the best ways to improve nurses’ working conditions.” “Like nurses across the country, nurses at University Medical Center represented by National Nurses United have deep concerns about the implementation of A.I. in our hospital,” the statement read. “A.I. is untested and largely unregulated, and we do not support turning our patients into test subjects for untested technology. Nurses should have a say in our work, and we advocate for patients to have a say in their care.” Registered Nurse Mike Robertshaw, a prominent union leader who was terminated by LCMC, speaks to the strikers outside of University Medical Center on Tuesday morning, July 15, 2025. Kisha Montes, a member of the union, said that the union doesn’t “support turning our patients into test subjects for untested technology” in relation to the company’s use of the AI software Nabla. Credit: Christiana Botic / Verite News and Catchlight Local/Report for America LCMC Health did not reply to a request for a comment from Verite News on the UMC nurses’ union statement. Groll added that while Nabla primarily focuses on improving the lives of medical providers, AI’s impact on the patient experience should not be forgotten. “I don’t think we address enough the patient side of this story,” she said. “We always like to think about providers, health systems, clinics, hospitals and so on. But at the end, what AI can change for patients should be the key question everybody should ask themselves.” Related Most Read Stories Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. 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