Century-old prescribing laws face AI challenge
Residents seeking a prescription refill under Utah’s program visit a Doctronic website built specifically for that purpose. After confirming their identity, the AI chatbot asks users about their prescriptions and medical history, verifying that they have a valid prescription on file before issuing a refill. The process operates without a human doctor reviewing the case.
MSI previously reported that Utah launched the pilot project in January, allowing Doctronic to renew prescriptions for common medications including antidepressants and cholesterol drugs. The state has said the program could improve medication access.
The operational mechanics of the program sit at the center of a broader regulatory question. State and federal prescribing laws have for more than a century limited the authority to prescribe medications to licensed medical professionals. Proponents of the Utah program argue those laws should be updated to explicitly allow AI systems to perform the same function.
Dr. Eric Bressman of the University of Pennsylvania said the program has crossed a line independent of the legal question. “We have crossed a threshold in terms of giving something that is not human a medical license, whether or not we want to call it that,” Bressman said.
Utah’s AI Office director Zach Boyd said the startup has been cautious in practice, often routing decisions to human doctors rather than letting the AI operate autonomously. Boyd said Doctronic has been “overly cautious, often elevating uncontroversial decisions to doctors.”
The American Medical Association and other physician groups have raised concerns about patient safety and the adequacy of vetting before the technology was deployed. The program has also drawn attention from other states weighing their own approaches to AI in medicine, with some considering legislation to block AI from acting on prescriptions.