I live in a country with free public healthcare. In a recent doctor's visit, the doctor was interviewing me while a nurse was typing into the computer. Presumably so that the doctor would have more time to attend patients and so that she wouldn't get distracted.

It's fascinating how this translates to the idea that in the USA, this should mean "more time with patients", but in reality also means "more patients", but is somehow bad because the is a monetary drive.

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jrockway 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Doctors have always been into "more patients", though. To some extent, if you're a doctor, the upper bound on your pay is how much you charge * how many patients you see. This is why you occasionally get seen well after your appointment time; people are double booked because some % reliability doesn't show up, but sometimes everyone DOES show up to their appointment and now it's your problem.

So if AI scribes mean "less double booking" then that's kind of a win/win. Less patient time is wasted. Doctors can make more money by seeing more people on a given day. Seems fair.

	▲	kelnos 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's not how it works, though. People/companies that find efficiency gains don't sit back and relax the rest of the time. They do more work with the extra time they have. So in your example, they'll continue to double-book, and reduce the total time spent with each patient (since they can be more efficient with each patient) and book more patients per day.

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jimbokun 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The big AI companies are in deep trouble if the general public ever figures this out.