What is the actual benefit here? If we believe the doctor's oversight is required, the AI introduces a dangerous potential for error. If we don't think a doctor's oversight is required, the medication shouldn't require a prescription in the first place. What positive value does the AI actually add that isn't circumventing a legal requirement that we decided to put in place?

AI is already being used to guide care outcomes and overrule doctors via “utilization management”.

I am a big believer in AI for drug discovery. But AI applied to patient care will never be used to benefit the patient or increase quality of care.

Cost reductions will be absorbed for profits. The medical industry has already aggressively implemented AI automation (imaging, automated note taking, etc) and in that period, costs have only increased.

In certain states, scheduling an appointment to see a doctor is >6 months out. If AI is able to take in your complaints, perhaps order some tests, triage and pass you to a doctor, that's a plus. Depending on the severity, not everybody needs to see a doctor. I appreciate what doctors do but most people can self-diagnose pretty well now but they are not able to get themselves tested which sucks. I'm happy to take my health into my own hands.

I think we came up with this dubious category of things that supposedly require oversight, but only to a minimal extent. Viagra, contraceptives, eyeglasses. You can already get these with near-zero diligence if you take the telehealth route, but I guess there's still someone who feels it would be a pressing societal issue if you took matters into your own hands and ordered the wrong kind of eyeglasses.

So here, AI isn't doing anything clever, it's just asking "are you sure you don't have a heart condition" and "are you sure you're not a crazy person". We don't really need LLMs for that, but if it's a catalyst for liberalization, fine.

The service is mainly in the image analysis to characterize the type of acne, which is reviewed by a doctor (100% initially, then 10%).

People can be uneducated about medication, acetaminophen overdose is a leading cause of acute liver failure in the United States. A little bit of a barrier and forced information about the concern might not be a bad thing but it doesn't require a doctor. A lot of medication probably falls in the same category but is on the other side of the prescription fence.

And doctors aren't infallible, AI (and rule based systems) can act as an extra safeguard for them as long as they don't blindly trust it.

The removing a prescription is a federal law, something that Utah can't overrule. Unfortunately some prescriptions are good for some medication and not great for others.

This is such a low quality comment that I wonder whether people even know how AI is used!

I see this same fallacy repeated all the time when we speak about AI.

"I want AI to be 100% accurate and not 99.999%"

"If AI makes even one mistake, why would I even use it?"

"What's the point of using AI if I have to verify it anyway?"

Here's how it could work.

You could always have a CI sort of thing for doctors prescriptions where you run the prescription through AI and it can flag any potential error to the doctor.

The LLM can be accurate enough that it only flags things when necessary

Well in this age of performative bullshit, it gives the appearance of "medical practice" and allows the government to keep people drugged and complacent. What other reason do you need?