Patients cannot confirm from the public record how long Tanana Chiefs' AI visit recordings are kept

Patients at Tanana Chiefs Conference clinics who agree to have a medical visit recorded by an artificial intelligence scribe cannot learn from the public record how long that recording survives. TCC told patients on Sept. 2, 2026, that recordings are "stored securely, protected under HIPAA privacy requirements, and deleted after 90 days." The vendor's published privacy policy says data covered by HIPAA "will be retained for a minimum of six (6) years from the date of its creation, or the date when it last was in effect, whichever is later." That policy mentions no 90-day period.

The vendor's six-year line sits under Storage and Retention in a policy that says it covers information collected when someone uses or registers with the company's website or platform. The words recording, audio and business associate appear nowhere in it. HIPAA, the federal medical privacy law, sets no retention period for patient records; the six-year clock it does set, worded as that policy words it, runs on documents such as notices and authorizations.

TCC's announcement separates the recording from the note it produces. Providers review, edit and approve every note before it enters the medical record, according to the announcement, and the tool does not diagnose conditions, recommend treatments or make medical decisions. The 90 days applies to the audio; the approved note stays in the chart.

TCC announced the tool, called Sully.ai, on its website that same day, framing it within Ch'eghwtsen', its stated commitment to compassionate care. Patients may decline by telling a provider, may change their mind, and TCC said "choosing not to use Sully.ai will not affect the care you receive."

TCC is a consortium of 42 members, including 39 villages and 37 federally recognized tribes, across 235,000 square miles of Interior Alaska, roughly 37 percent of the state. Its network includes the Chief Andrew Isaac Health Center in Fairbanks and nearly 40 clinics. For most member villages, TCC is the health system available.

On training data, TCC told patients that "in some cases, the technology company may remove identifying information, such as names, and use de-identified portions of recordings of the encounter to improve the AI system." The vendor, Odiggo Inc of Santa Clara, California, doing business as Sully.ai, states on its trust page, under the heading "No PHI in Model Training," that "patient health information is never used to train AI models." The word de-identified, which reconciles the two statements under HIPAA because stripped data is no longer protected health information, appears in TCC's notice and in neither vendor document.

TCC's Notice of Privacy Practices, effective February 2026, is the twelve-page notice that legally describes how TCC Health Services uses and discloses patient information. It predates the announcement by seven months and does not mention audio, recording, artificial intelligence, de-identification or outside vendors. The notice says: "We will not use or share your information other than as described here unless you tell us we can in writing." The consent TCC described this week is spoken.

None of the three documents establishes that anything improper occurred. The record that would reconcile them, the service contract and business associate agreement between TCC and Odiggo Inc, is not published, though the vendor's trust page says it operates as a HIPAA business associate, the contractor role that binds a vendor to a provider's privacy duties, and executes such agreements with every covered entity. This account draws only on those public documents. No patient, provider or TCC official is quoted in them on the discrepancy, and no vendor statement addressing the 90-day figure appears in the material.

Patients may direct privacy complaints to the TCC Privacy Officer in Fairbanks, reachable through TCC's main line at 907-452-8251, or to the federal Office for Civil Rights at Health and Human Services, which enforces HIPAA.