Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't feasible for a huge swathe of the USA, often because of costs/insurance but sometimes literally just accessibility/availability. A few years ago it took me nearly 8 months to find a PCP in my city that was accepting new patients (and, wee, they dropped my insurance less than a year after).
Maybe time to ask AI why you’re looking for a technical solution rather than addressing the gaslighting that has left you with such piss-poor medical care in the richest country on earth?
ChatGPT Health
211–220 of 677 posts
Re: ChatGPT Health
#212I’m kind of torn on this. From one side, I can’t seem to trust doctors any more. I recently had a tooth removed (by the advice of two different doctors), in a claim that it will resolve my pain, which it did not, and now 3 different doctors don’t know what’s causing my pain. Most doctor advice boil down to drink some water and take a painkiller, while glancing for 15 seconds at my medical history before they dedicate…
Even worse, they were almost always wrong about the diagnosis and I'd find myself on 3 or 4 rounds of antibiotics, or would go to the pharmacy to pick up something and they'd let me know the cocktail I had just been prescribed had dangerous counterindications. I finally stopped going when I caught a doctor searching webmd when I was on my fourth return visit for a simple sinus infection that had turned into a terrible ear infection.
My next doctor wasn't much better. And I had really started to lose trust in the medical system and in medical training.
We moved a few years ago to a different city, and I hadn't found a doctor yet. One day I took sick with something, went to a local walk-in clinic in a strip mall used mostly by the local underprivileged immigrant community.
Luck would have it I now found an amazing doctor who's been 100% correct in every diagnosis and line of care for both me and my wife since - including some difficult and sometimes hard to diagnose issues. She has basically no equipment except a scale, a light, a sphygmomanometer, and a stethoscope. Does all of her work using old fashioned techniques like listening to breathing or palpation and will refer to the local imaging center or send out to the local lab nearby if something deeper is needed.
The difference in absolutely wild. I sometimes wonder if she and my old doctors are even in the same profession.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you don't like your doctor, try some other ones until you find a good one, because they can be a world difference in quality -- and don't be moved by the shine of the office.
Re: ChatGPT Health
#213My uncle had an issue with his balance and slurred speech. Doctors claimed dementia and sent him home. It kept becoming worse and worse. Then one day I entered the symptoms in ChatGPT (or was it Gemini?) and asked it for the top 3 hypotheses. The first one was related to dementia. The second was something else (I forget the long name). I took all 3 to his primary care doc who had kept ignoring the problem, and asked…
Quite a mouthful for the layman and the symptoms you are describing would fit. NPH has one of my favorite mnemonic in medicine for students learning about the condition, describing the hallmark symptoms as: "Wet, Wobbly and Wacky."
Wet referring to urinary incontinence, Wobbly referring to ataxia/balance issues and Wacky referring to encephalopathy (which could mimic dementia symptoms).
Re: ChatGPT Health
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
Getting a potential answer right away is certainly temping over waiting weeks to get an appointment
You have to wait weeks to be seen by a family doctor?
Re: ChatGPT Health
#215I really feel like no one should trust open ai with their health data.
Re: ChatGPT Health
#216I use [insert LLM provider here] all the time to ask generic, health-related questions but I’m careful about what I disclose and how I disclose it to the models. I would never connect data from my primary care’s EHR system directly to one of these providers.
That said, it’ll be interesting to see how the general population responds to this and whether they embrace it or have some skepticism.
I’m not confident we’ll have powerful/efficient enough on-device models to build this before people start adopting the SaaS-based AI health solutions.
ChatGPT’s target market is very clearly the average consumer who may not necessarily care what they do with their data.
Re: ChatGPT Health
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
But this is a 'cart before the horse' situation. What evidence do you have that providing your health information to this company will help you or anyone (other than those with financial interest in the company)? There is a very real, near definite, chance that giving your, and others', health data to this company will hurt you and others. Will you still hold this, "I personally don’t care who has access to my health…
I’m definitely a privacy fist person, but can you explain how health data could hurt you, besides obvious things like being discriminated against for insurance if you have a drug habit or whatever. Like, i’m a fitness conscious 30 something white male, what risk is there of my appendix operation being common knowledge or that i need more iron or something?
Right. So able bodied, and the gender and race least associated with violence from the state.
> being discriminated against for insurance if you have a drug habit
"drug habit", Why choose an example that is often admonished as a personal failing? How about we say the same, but have something wholly, inarguably, outside of your control, like race, be the discriminating factor?
You medical records may be your DNA.
The US once had a racist legal principle called the "one drop rule": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule
Now imagine an, lets say 'sympathetic to the Nazi agenda', administration takes control of the US gov's health and state sanctioned violence services. They decide to use those tools to address all of the, what they consider, 'undesirables'.
Your DNA says you have "one drop" of the undesirable's blood, some ancient ancestor you were unaware of, and this admin tells you they are going to discriminate against your insurance because of it based on some racist psuedoscience.
You say, "but I thought i was a 30 something WHITE male!!" and they tell you "welp, you were wrong, we have your medical records to prove it", you get irate that somehow your medical records left the datacenter of that llm company you liked to have make funny cat pictures for you and got in their hands, and they claim your behavior caused them to fear for their lives and now you are in a detention center or a shallow grave.
"That's an absurd exaggeration." You may say, but the current admin is already removing funding, or entire agencies, based on policy(DEI etc) and race(singling out Haitian and Somali immigrants), how is it much different from Jim Crow era policies like redlining?
If you find yourself thinking, "I'm a fitness conscious 30 something white male, why should I care?", it can help to develop some empathy, and stop to think "what if I was anything but a fitness conscious 30 something white male?"
Re: ChatGPT Health
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
When your health data can say you are trans, and the government decides to persecute you, then yes, it important to maintain privacy.
I find it really really really hard to believe that there exists a person in this planet who: 1. Is transexual but does not tell anybody they are and it is also not blatantly obvious 2. Writes down in a health record they are transexual (instead of whatever sex they are now) 3. Someone doxxes they/them medical records 4. Because of 3, and only because of 3, people find out that said person is transexual 5. And then .…
Re: ChatGPT Health
#219Something to note here is that just yesterday (January 6 2026) the FDA announced changes around regulation of wearable & AI enabled devices: https://www.statnews.com/2026/01/06/fda-pulls-back-oversight... (" FDA announces sweeping changes to oversight of wearables, AI-enabled devices The changes could allow unregulated generative artificial intelligence tools into clinical workflows")
I think it's only a matter of time before OpenAI starts doing hardware (phones, watches, vr)
Re: ChatGPT Health
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know someone who used ChatGPT to diagnose themselves with a rare and specific disease. They paid out of pocket for some expensive and intrusive diagnostics that their doctor didn't want to perform and it came out, surprise, that they didn't have this disease. The faith of this person in ChatGPT remains nonetheless just as high. I'm constantly amazed at the attitude that doctors are useless and that their multiple y…
Doctors are wrong all the time as well. There are quite a few studies on this. I would in no way trust a doctor over ChatGPT at this point. At least with ChatGPT I can ask it to cite the sources proving its conclusions. Then I can verify them. I can’t do that with a doctor it’s all “trust me bro”