{"id":158576,"date":"2026-07-28T07:05:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T15:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/07\/28\/what-happens-when-patients-trust-ai-over-their-doctor\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T07:05:06","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T15:05:06","slug":"what-happens-when-patients-trust-ai-over-their-doctor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/07\/28\/what-happens-when-patients-trust-ai-over-their-doctor\/","title":{"rendered":"What Happens When Patients Trust AI Over Their Doctor?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The post What Happens When Patients Trust AI Over Their Doctor?<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Patients are increasingly walking into exam rooms having already consulted<\/a> an AI chatbot about their symptoms \u2014 and sometimes trusting it as much as they trust their doctor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But when a chatbot gets it wrong and a patient gets hurt, who bears the responsibility? According to Meghan O\u2019Connor, health law partner at Quarles & Brady<\/a> and co-chair of the firm\u2019s AI team, the answer is still being written.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the most significant open questions in healthcare law right now, and the honest answer is that liability allocation is going to be highly fact-dependent and will likely take years of litigation to clarify,\u201d she remarked.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor broke the liability question into three layers: the AI developer, the patient and the provider.<\/p>\n

AI companies often lean on disclaimers stating their outputs aren\u2019t medical advice, but those disclaimers might not hold up if a chatbot was marketed in a way that encouraged patients to treat its answers as diagnostic guidance, she explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As for patients, O\u2019Connor says courts are unlikely to pin much blame on them for trusting a tool that presents itself as authoritative.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Providers have to walk a finer line, though. Once a patient discloses they\u2019ve been relying on inaccurate AI advice, the provider\u2019s failure to correct it could become a malpractice issue. O\u2019Connor said this standard-of-care issue boils down to what a reasonable provider would have done with that same information.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy practical recommendation for providers: correct misinformation, document the conversation and treat AI-sourced information the same way you\u2019d treat any patient-reported information that conflicts with clinical judgment \u2014 address it directly and note that you did,\u201d she stated.<\/p>\n

Once a patient starts discussing AI-generated information during a clinical encounter, that information becomes part of the clinical picture the same way as a patient reporting web-browsing results or advice from their friend, O\u2019Connor noted.<\/p>\n

She said silence is rarely the safer option.<\/p>\n

\u201cThink of it this way: if a patient told you they read on an internet forum that drinking pickle juice would cure their glaucoma, no reasonable ophthalmologist would say nothing. AI-sourced misinformation should be treated the same way. The source of the bad information does not change the provider\u2019s reasonable duty to the patient once it\u2019s been raised in the context of care,\u201d O\u2019Connor declared.<\/p>\n

The law hasn\u2019t caught up to AI chatbots yet, but her bottom-line advice for providers is to engage, not ignore. It\u2019s a small investment of time that she said could matter a great deal down the line.<\/p>\n

Photo: Witthaya Prasongsin, Getty Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The post What Happens When Patients Trust AI Over Their Doctor? appeared first on Above the Law. Patients are increasingly walking into exam rooms having already consulted an AI chatbot about their symptoms \u2014 and sometimes trusting it as much as they trust their doctor.\u00a0 But when a chatbot gets it wrong and a patient […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":158577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/chatbot-BTQ93X.jpg?fit=724%2C483&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}