I have quite a few physicians and nurse practitioners among my closest friends. They can almost always give me more candid, detailed and better explanations of what I may have experienced medically than my PCP, so I practically never use my PCP for anything other than annual physical. I even rely more on my friends than my PCP to interpret the results of my checkups for the same reasons I gave above. My suspicion is that I can now get equally good advices from AI technologies. From insurance companies’ perspective, PCPs are still necessities currently because they act as gatekeepers under most of their plans. But I imagine that insurance companies will use AI in the future for that purpose, at least for the initial diagnoses to determine whether referrals are necessary.
Do you prefer to see or ask your primary care physician first, or immediately seek out a specialist?
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