Daily Briefing for October 31, 2026
Physician in the Loop · Oct 31, 2026 · 5:21
Physician in the Loop · Oct 31, 2026 · 5:21
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AI chatbots recommend care costing 3 times what physicians order
The voices on this episode are generated, and so is the script, from the day's post at Physician in the Loop. Every fact in the post links to its source.
Twenty general-purpose AI chatbots given 200 outpatient and emergency department notes recommended care costing an average of $314 per visit, more than three times the $97 the treating physicians ordered, a NEJM AI study found.
Most of the gap came from tests the chatbots suggested at visits where physicians had ordered none, the authors reported. A separate Annals of Internal Medicine benchmark found six commercial models usually held back on low-value care but recommended thyroid ultrasound for incidental subcentimeter nodules in 42.8% of responses.
In other news, Medline is removing or correcting all of its beds after reports of two deaths and 16 serious injuries, U.S. measles cases reached 4,852 for the year, STAT reported that Epic has used its market power against rival app makers, and the Food and Drug Administration approved the first plasmid DNA immunotherapy, for recurrent respiratory papillomatosis.
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