Would you believe that an AI could prescribe mind-altering psychiatric drugs for you? Amidst the many controversies surrounding chatbot therapy and AI giving bad (or dangerous) medical advice, one healthcare provider is betting you will, and has received approval to do so from regulators in Utah.
Legion Health has launched a pilot program to dispense prescription drugs with an AI chatbot powered by health technology company Doctronic. However, there are many caveats regarding what can and cannot be prescribed. According to the announcement, the discoverer The Vergechatbots will only prescribe medications that are considered low-risk, such as SSRIs like sertraline (Zoloft) for depression, rather than habit-forming drugs like benzodiazepines or some ADHD drugs like Adderall.
Additionally, chatbots can only offer drugs for which the consumer already has a prescription, rather than distributing entirely new drugs to the user. Before receiving a prescription, consumers are asked to answer 15 questions, including topics such as their mood, general health, and side effects of current medications. This service costs approximately $20.
“Prescription renewals represent a large portion of a healthcare provider’s daily administrative burden,” said a statement from the Utah Office of Artificial Intelligence Policy. “By automating these secure, routine requests, Doctronic hopes to free doctors to focus more on patient care, reduce delays, and help patients stay on track with their medications.”
Other safeguards also appear to be in place during the early stages of the project. The first phase of the rollout will include a mandatory review by a human doctor, which will be phased out. Despite these safeguards, many psychiatric experts have already expressed concerns ahead of the rollout. In comments to The Verge, John Taurus, director of digital psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, questioned whether AI systems can “understand the unique circumstances and factors involved in an individual’s medication.” He added that many patients require “active management” and “careful attention,” which can be difficult to provide with a chatbot.
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It remains to be seen whether Utah will see more of this type of AI psychiatry. Utah regulators say they plan to collect qualitative and quantitative data on the real-world impact of AI over the course of a year, during which the experiment will be conducted, before making permanent changes to state law. But Legion executives remain hopeful, with Legion CEO Arthur McWaters saying the chatbot could be available in every U.S. state “very quickly.”
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