Medical Board Wants AI Doctor Program ‘Immediately Suspended’

The Utah Medical Licensing Board has called for the immediate suspension of a state-run pilot program that would allow artificial intelligence (AI)-based prescription renewals, noting that it potentially places citizens at risk.

“Overseeing prescription refills is a task reserved for properly licensed medical practitioners for critical safety and clinical reasons,” the board wrote in an April 20 letter to the Utah Department of Commerce. “Each refill requires reassessment and clinical decision-making to safely adjust doses, monitor for side effects, contraindications, or new drug interactions, and ensure the medication remains effective. Patients who continue refilling medications without assessment may remain on outdated or suboptimal therapy for months or years. There is a reason prescription refills require physician authorization.”

“It is the strong recommendation of the Utah Medical Licensing Board that this program be immediately suspended pending further discussion,” the board stated.

The commerce department announced the pilot program on Jan. 6, although it actually began in October 2025. Medication noncompliance is a big driver of negative health outcomes and avoidable spending, the department said in a press release. “With prescription renewals accounting for roughly 80% of all medication activity, Utah and [AI vendor] Doctronic aim to test how autonomous AI can help close gaps in access” and improve outcomes for patients with chronic conditions. Patients in Utah who want to access the program can do so using the Doctronic website.

“Under this partnership, Doctronic will become the first AI to legally prescribe routine refills by deploying its autonomous AI health platform,” the commerce department noted, adding that the state will “rigorously evaluate” the program’s safety protocols and patient experience. “The effort aims to demonstrate that safe, well-regulated AI can improve adherence, prevent avoidable hospital visits, and reduce healthcare spending, while keeping clinicians at the center of care.”

The licensing board pointed out that it was not notified about the pilot program, which includes 192 drugs and requires consumers to request an AI-generated refill, until after it had gone into effect. But the Utah Department of Commerce told KUTV that the board was not required to be involved and said licensed medical professionals were consulted before launch. Officials also said that all prescriptions are reviewed by a licensed physician and that there is no autonomous prescribing. They added that the program’s goal is to expand access to care and that the board will be included in any future expansion.

A spokesperson for the Department of Commerce said in an email to MedPage Today that the pilot program “is in Phase One, which requires the first 250 prescriptions of each medication class to be reviewed by a physician to assess the accuracy of the AI. In future phases, it is expected that the AI will work autonomously, with some level of physician interaction or review.”

The licensing board is not the only physician group that objects to the program. “We think it is completely inappropriate for a number of reasons,” Michelle McOmber, CEO of the Utah Medical Association, told MedPage Today. For instance, “the patient may be on other medications that will interact with a refill,” and there are concerns related to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) “and privacy concerns since there is nothing that says these [requests and the records they generate] are secure.”

“If it is a refill, whose name is it under and who has liability?” McOmber said. If the prescription renewal is listed under the original physician’s name, “that is a problem when the physician is not involved in the refill … That person would be liable” if anything goes wrong. In addition, “it may no longer be an appropriate prescription since a patient’s health may have changed,” she pointed out.

But not everyone is opposed to the idea. “Review of Doctronic’s proposal and contract with Utah and conversations with the parties reveal a well-designed pilot program with several guardrails against patient harm,” Michelle Mello, PhD, of Stanford Law School in California, wrote in JAMA Health Forum. “Only adults can participate and the selected medications are established therapies for common health conditions such as hypertension, depression, birth control, diabetes, glaucoma, asthma, inflammation, and hyperlipidemia.”

Mello did, however, express some concerns about “scope creep.”

“Once an AI system has secured acceptance, vendors may be able to push updates that include substantial changes without attracting the same degree of scrutiny as the initial adoption,” she noted. “If Utah’s pilot program is the proverbial camel’s nose in the tent, it will be important for someone to be firmly holding the reins when the camel emerges.”

Daniel Aaron, MD, of the University of Utah’s Quinney College of Law in Salt Lake City, and Christopher Robertson, PhD, of Boston University Schools of Law and Public Heath, were even more cautious.

“Artificial intelligence could reduce pervasive medication errors, enhance process efficiency, and free physicians to focus on complex diagnostic tasks or human-to-human interactions,” they wrote in a viewpoint in JAMA. “However, technologic innovations can also cause harm, generate waste, and undermine the clinical relationship. They might also reduce the number of patient-clinician encounters and therefore opportunities for physicians to spot other problems and for patients to organically raise concerns and questions.”

The National Community Pharmacists Association said in a statement that it is taking a “wait and see” approach, noting that it “sees promise for better pharmacy workflow and patient experience by adoption of artificial intelligence tools, and we are also mindful of the sensitive nature of patient health data and low tolerance for risk.”

“We’re monitoring this program and encourage the Utah Department of Commerce and Division of Professional Licensing to include in its evaluations the pilot program’s potential contribution to polypharmacy and fragmented patient care,” the association added.

As Utah launches its state-level AI-based renewal program, federal lawmakers are also taking an interest in the idea. A bill sponsored by Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) would amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to clarify that AI and machine-learning technologies can qualify as a practitioner eligible to prescribe drugs if authorized by the state involved and approved by the FDA.