Every night for 35 years, physical therapist Rudy Marin followed the same routine: finish treating patients, go home, have dinner. And then, he would open his laptop to type clinical notes late into the evening.
“I would have dinner with my wife, then start typing my evaluation and treatment notes until about 10:30 or 11 every night,” said Marin, CEO of El Paso Physical Therapy Services. “Since we started using AI clinical documentation, I hardly take any work home.”
Marin is one of more than 1,300 Confluent Health providers who will be using AI-powered clinical documentation by mid-November, part of the company’s ongoing rollout of Comprehend, an AI platform designed to capture and structure documentation in real time during patient visits.
The technology is being adopted across physical therapy, occupational therapy and PTA roles and is expected to reach all 3,100 Confluent Health providers in the coming months. The shift is already redefining how providers balance care delivery and daily workload, and for many, how they experience their jobs.
A Fix for One of Healthcare’s Most Persistent Pain Points
Documentation has long been one of the biggest contributors to burnout in post-acute and outpatient rehab settings, where productivity requirements often push note-writing into personal time.
“We adopted AI documentation because we believe technology should serve clinicians, not the other way around,” said Stephen Clark, Chief Clinical Officer at Confluent Health. “This is about improving the day-to-day experience of being a clinician. We’re reducing administrative burden, preventing burnout, and ultimately giving patients our full attention. When clinicians thrive, patients benefit.”
A Tool That Works for “Old PTs” and New Graduates Alike
While AI adoption in healthcare is often framed as a generational divide, Marin said the platform was surprisingly easy to learn, even after decades of doing things manually.
“I have been a PT for 35 years and I always had paperwork to take home prior to AI documentation,” he said. “It has definitely improved my work-life balance since I can finish my documentation prior to leaving the clinic.”
He also pointed to a benefit especially relevant in his market: AI-powered translation.
“Comprehend automatically translates Spanish to English, and it does so accurately,” Marin said. “I haven’t seen a single incorrect translation.”
At SporTherapy in Texas, the experience has been just as positive, but for different reasons. Senior Regional Director Brandon O’Malley said their newest clinicians, many fresh out of school, adopted the tool almost instantly.
“Our new grads and even current staff have adapted to utilizing AI quickly,” O’Malley said. “It is not complicated, and many people are already using AI in other aspects of their lives.”
But the biggest surprise hasn’t been efficiency. It’s the patient response.
“We are consistently getting feedback from patients praising how much we listen to them compared to all their other providers who are on their computer the whole time,” he said. “We feel AI has created an environment to build better rapport and relationships with patients.”
The benefit extends beyond clinic walls.
“It has also freed up our clinicians’ time to enjoy their time outside of work and not be burdened by documentation time,” O’Malley said.
From Technology Add-On to Clinical Culture Shift
Clark emphasized that the goal of integrating AI isn’t to replace clinicians, but to enhance what makes therapy personal and effective in the first place.
“It’s bringing back clinical presence,” Clark said. “When you remove the distraction of a screen, you reconnect with the human side of care. That’s what patients remember, and that’s what drives better outcomes.”
The Next Phase: Scale, Standardization and Redefined Job Satisfaction
With 1,320 providers live on the platform, Confluent Health expects to scale AI documentation across its full footprint over the next several months, making it standard across new grad onboarding, mentoring and clinical workflows.
“The scale of this rollout isn’t just about efficiency, it’s about sustainability,” Clark said. “By giving clinicians back time and mental bandwidth, we’re addressing two of the biggest issues in healthcare today: burnout and retention. This is how we build a workforce that can thrive for the long term.”
What Comes Next
As adoption expands, leaders across the network say the shift is less about technology and more about restoring something the profession has slowly lost: time.
For Marin, the impact is personal and immediate.
“I have more time with my wife and family,” he said. “And I have more time to spend on what we do best: patient care.”