{"id":398630,"date":"2026-01-08T00:29:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T00:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/398630\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T00:29:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T00:29:07","slug":"ai-starts-autonomously-writing-prescription-refills-in-utah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/398630\/","title":{"rendered":"AI starts autonomously writing prescription refills in Utah"},"content":{"rendered":"

Caution<\/p>\n

The first 250 renewals for each drug class will be reviewed by real doctors, but after that, the AI chatbot will be on its own. Adam Oskowitz, Doctronic co-founder and a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, told Politico that the AI chatbot is designed to err on the side of safety and escalate any case with uncertainty to a real doctor.<\/p>\n

\u201cUtah\u2019s approach to regulatory mitigation strikes a vital balance between fostering innovation and ensuring consumer safety,\u201d Margaret Woolley Busse, executive director of the Utah Department of Commerce, said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For now, it\u2019s unclear if the Food and Drug Administration will step in to regulate AI prescribing. On the one hand, prescription renewals are a matter of practicing medicine, which falls under state governance. However, Politico notes that the FDA has said that it has the authority to regulate medical devices used to diagnose, treat, or prevent disease.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Robert Steinbrook, health research group director at watchdog Public Citizen, blasted Doctronic\u2019s program and the lack of oversight. \u201cAI should not be autonomously refilling prescriptions, nor identifying itself as an \u2018AI doctor,’\u201d Steinbrook said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough the thoughtful application of AI can help to improve aspects of medical care, the Utah pilot program is a dangerous first step toward more autonomous medical practice,\u201d he said.”The FDA and other federal regulatory agencies cannot look the other way when AI applications undermine the essential human clinician role in prescribing and renewing medications.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Caution The first 250 renewals for each drug class will be reviewed by real doctors, but after that,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[64,63,137,490],"class_list":{"0":"post-398630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-medication"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}