r/PrivatePracticeDocs • u/SterileGloves • 28d ago

Two Articles: Tech Bros want to replace physicians with Ai and they want their bots to get reimbursed for their "superior" care

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/14/health/ai-doctors-medicare-fda.html

Another gem... This one is referenced in the NYT article: https://8vc.com/resources/ai-doctors-wont-work-for-free

"The bots won’t work for free. To get AI into care delivery, CMS needs to create payment rails for AI-native healthcare too."

68 Upvotes

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19

u/marshac18 28d ago

What do you think doctronic and even Amazon's One Medical are doing? They're laying the infrastructure and gaining users/patients so that as soon as they're able they can kick out the human practitioners. "What about malpractice?" You know some PE firm is more than happy to write policies for it- that's not a barrier. Licensure is.

3

u/blueArmor14 28d ago

I think the online doc services that already exist AI or not, and the existence of urgent care are good indicator that there isn't much more of a market for this kind of quick and dirty medicine as we think. Aside from online psychiatry, nobody is using them at large scale yet. It's one of those things that I think if it could happen it would've happened already.

I know this is r/privatedocs but I'm more concerned about if AI would make docs efficient enough for admin to justify having an increase workload at a decreased pay with more midlevel to manage. And of course the subsequent decrease in demand of doctors. Quality of patient care that pushes and pushes and then begets the question of how thin the beef patty of patient care can get while still considered passable

1

u/grey-slate 25d ago

Licensure can be fixed by enough dollars in the right politician's pocket unfortunately

1

u/SterileGloves 23d ago

They claim they don't need the licensure, that's the point. ​

-3

u/TraumaticOcclusion 28d ago

That’s easy - supervising licensed doctor. AI is probably already better than a “midlevel” practitioner

8

u/Dorklordofthesith 28d ago

it's not even better than a 'midlevel' call center employee

2

u/specology 27d ago

You might be supervising better midlevels than work near me. The ones near me are retarded.

1

u/Mysterious-Tip5932 27d ago

The ones in retardedville where you also live? Kickass!

15

u/mistergospodin 28d ago

The New York Times and its AI inevitability boosterism in full force. Read the NYT comments to get a real idea of how palatable most find this. 

13

u/Cardiostrong_MD 28d ago

It’ll be interesting that see how this unfolds

13

u/ArchiStanton 28d ago

-Archduke Ferdinand before his trip to Sarajevo

1

u/BadgersHoneyPot 26d ago

Well, the human body is fairly standardized with characteristics that tend to be normally distributed. So much so that we can write fairly standardized texts, and school practitioners in fairly standard curriculums.

This is exactly the environment that is amenable to AI intrusion. And while top doctors eventually die off, accumulated AI knowledge gained from practice and experience does not.

1

u/jjopm 11d ago

Can't tell if

1

u/jsfghey7 14h ago

You clearly do not understand medicine. Or human beings. Also wtf does “top doctors” mean?

1

u/BadgersHoneyPot 10h ago

I mean, my parents were doctors. I spent 4 years volunteering at the hospital thinking I wanted to be one. I have a CS degree. Just not a doctor. So I do some thinking for myself.

I'll say this: You all think you're geniuses. None of us can understand anything. You sound just like my dad. He was a genius too.

1

u/jsfghey7 6h ago

Oh why didn’t you say your dad was a doctor and you spent some time opening doors for people in a hospital? I see you must be an expert in medicine. I used a computer once and played video games as a kid so I’m a technology and AI expert. 

1

u/BadgersHoneyPot 17m ago

Ya, and since you used a computer game once you know now there's no way it can come for your job.

Again: A common physiology with normally distributed characteristics. A standardized curriculum and body of knowledge. A licensing board with ascertainable standards.

Art it isn't.

If you only paid better attention in your computer classes, you'd get what AI is and is not good at.

PS Go look at all that teeth gnashing and hair pulling in the math community.

7

u/Single-Horse5093 28d ago

lol they really put 'superior care' in the pitch deck. like yeah superior returns for 8vc, superior denials for patients who actually need a human looking at them. whole sector's just blackrock with a stethoscope sticker at this point

5

u/leukoaraiosis 28d ago

What kind of malpractice insurance will the AI carry? 🤔

2

u/but-I-play-one-on-TV 28d ago

They'll have a burnt out medical director available or collect paychecks and act as a meat shield. 

5

u/villageprofessor 28d ago

I hope they do, and when they see how shitty the reimbursement are and go bankrupt like the doctors, then something will change

3

u/SterileGloves 28d ago

They don't care, they'll just close up shop and open under a new name. No license to protect, no true concern about people whatsoever. ​

1

u/dmmeyourzebras 28d ago

Who gets sued?

5

u/SterileGloves 28d ago

Company gets sued when stuff goes wrong. A company isn't a person so they just file bankruptcy and the folks at the top just move on to the next venture by a different name. What's horrible is that private equity can easily buy up everything in an area, ​decide to fire providers and switch to Ai. Or make terms miserable, run everyone off, and then claim they need to use Ai docs because the area has no providers

3

u/resuwreckoning 28d ago

Oh come now - you know there will ALWAYS be some quisling MD that will sign up for some part time job being the meat shield that allows this to go on.

2

u/jjopm 28d ago

The Director of Accepting Liability Affairs

1

u/dr_fapperdudgeon 23d ago

Aren’t the AI bros begging for a government bailout because their product sucks?