'Good ideas at scale!' Dr. Oz wants cheap AI avatars to take roles from pricey doctors

One of Dr. Mehmet Oz's first orders of business after being appointed President Donald Trump's director of Medicare and Medicaid Services: robot doctors.

According to Wired, Oz made the comments during his first all-hands meeting at CMS since taking over the agency.

"Oz claimed that if a patient went to a doctor for a diabetes diagnosis, it would be '$100' per hour, while an appointment with an AI avatar would cost considerably less, at just '$2' an hour," reported Leah Feiger and Steven Levy. "Oz also claimed that patients have rated the care they’ve received from an AI avatar as equal to or better than a human doctor ... Because of technologies like machine learning and AI, Oz claimed, it is now possible to scale 'good ideas' in an affordable and fast way."

Current research indicates that patients trust medical advice from AI less than from human doctors.

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"CMS has explored the use of AI for the last several years, according to archived versions of an agency website dedicated to the topic, and the agency released an updated 'AI Playbook' in 2022," noted the report. However, "those efforts appear to have focused on finding ways to leverage vast CMS data sets, rather than involving AI directly in patient care."

Oz, a former thoracic surgeon, was best known before his confirmation to the Trump administration for running a controversial daytime talk show in which he promoted unproven supplements as miracle weight loss solutions.

While he has promised lawmakers to stop his side hustles of promoting supplements while serving in government, Oz's appointment has caused a separate concern among observers that he might undo recently-proposed safeguards on preventing waste and fraud in Medicare Advantage plans, privatized insurance paid for by taxpayers as an alternative to traditional Medicare, as Oz has been an outspoken promoter of the program. With Oz at the Helm, CMS is currently announcing a significantly higher reimbursement hike to Medicare Advantage insurers than was previously proposed.