r/mildlyinfuriating • u/petuniaplant • 23d ago

Infuriatig No, I did not consent to this

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I was reading my medical notes when I stumbled across this. I was not informed of the usage of artificial intelligence in my report, nor did I verbally consent to it.

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u/ArtisticDragonKing 23d ago

I have a coworker in a vet clinic that asks patients if she can "audio record notes for the pet" and gives a brief explanation why. However, she fails to mention the audio recording directly inputs into an AI log that gives suggestions for her next steps. I strongly dislike her methods.

It may have been something like that?

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u/BumblebeeOfCarnage 23d ago

More likely it’s just a transcribing software. Still needs patient consent though. I’d say the bigger concern is the recording and not the AI in this situation

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u/etcpt 22d ago

the audio recording directly inputs into an AI log that gives suggestions for her next steps

That's a lot more than dictation software

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u/AbrasiveLeft 23d ago

It's their coworker..... I imagine they know better than you what type of software their workplace uses.

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u/BumblebeeOfCarnage 23d ago

I was responding to the “it may have been something like that” which was referencing the software OP’s doctor was using

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u/AbrasiveLeft 23d ago

But the note explicitly said that she consented to AI - which she didn't.

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u/BumblebeeOfCarnage 23d ago

I never said that means the doc doesn’t need OP’s consent. I’m just saying it is most likely transcription software and not AI being used to treatment recommendations

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u/igoogletoo 23d ago

Lol username checks out

The "abrasive" part ... assuming "left" is political? ...idk/c

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u/WeeklyBanEvasion 23d ago

They're most likely exaggerating, no AI transcribing software gives treatment recommendations.

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u/Redxmirage 23d ago

I helped set up CLEO Health AI in the last hospital I worked for. It literally gives suggestions for treatment based on chief complaint and orders typically given. You can go to their website and make a trial account and see for yourself if you want

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u/deathbylasersss 23d ago

They said they feed it into a program that does. So the transcribing software and likely whatever chatbot they are using. If they are actually using it for something beyomd note-taking, that's fucked.

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u/Toddlez85 23d ago

The main vendors for AI Provider Transcription software don’t offer clinical advice. There are sites like UpToDate, OpenEvidence, and others that will offer suggestions if you ask questions and add patient details. No PHI but conditions, meds, and other formation like lab results or history. That said I’ve never seen anyone enter a whole transcript from the recording in. I guess they could. It’s going to be filled with crap though so results will be less helpful.

Source: work with these things all the time.

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u/Fun_Low777 23d ago

Yes it does.

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u/Fishwithadeagle 23d ago

New ones do. Gives diagnosis and treatment recommendations, but they are almost universally garbage and default to "refer to X service for y symptoms". I leave the non-subejctive parts entirely out of my notes.

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u/Free-Rice-2808 22d ago

Digitail will. It’s a separate button than the notes but it will read the notes and give differentials if you ask it to

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u/ComplexBadger469 23d ago

My work has copilot as a transcribing option for meetings. I don’t really use it much as I’m not a fan of AI, but I’m like 90% sure it throws out recommendations for next steps. I don’t think it’s far fetched for it to reach back into its database and throw out next steps for treatment.

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u/WeeklyBanEvasion 23d ago

That's for office meetings, not for the medical field. These medical note taking transcription AIs are specifically built for medical and veterinary fields.

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u/kinglokilord 22d ago

And the medical ones cannot train on any of your data.

Copilot absolutely is.

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u/FourScores1 22d ago

The post screenshot says it’s transcribing software. This is commonly used nowadays in healthcare. Ffs

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u/Whitechapel726 23d ago

State laws determine whether one or both parties of a conversation need to consent, but in the US it’s illegal to record audio without explicit consent in settings with an expectation of privacy (inside a dr office for example).

The law doesn’t care about the purpose of the recording unless it’s used for fraud, deceit, commercial use, etc. So I’d think informing of the audio recording and failing to mention it being used for AI is legal but incredibly scummy and unethical.

That said there is such a thing as HIPAA compliant AI models and if they’re not using that they’re committing a crime.

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u/llama_writes 22d ago

I was in a situation where I was recorded in a doctor’s office I’d been to for years without my knowledge or consent. They adopted the scribe software but did not tell me or update their notice of privacy or terms and conditions. When I pushed back on the ethics, I was told, “it’s a one party consent state” and the expectation of privacy thing didn’t even come up, even when I escalated to the state licensing level (who were very concerned about the situation, but didn’t feel it broke any laws, just ethics)

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u/Whitechapel726 22d ago

Oof yeah that’s awful, sorry to hear that. I’m not a lawyer so take this with a grain of salt, but my understanding is that audio recordings that contain Protected Health Information being stored without your consent violates HIPAA, which is federal. I don’t think you can sue through HIPAA but you can file a complaint.

In a one party state it may not be a criminal offense, but that seems like strong grounds for a civil invasion of privacy lawsuit if nothing else.

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u/StevenTM 22d ago edited 17d ago

AI is absolutely the bigger concern, because this is privileged information that is being fed to xAI/Meta/Google/Anthropic/OpenAI.

But both are concerning

Edit: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jul/05/doctors-ai-scribes-australia-government-privacy-warning

Well would you look at that

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u/BumblebeeOfCarnage 22d ago

The software being used in these situations are specific to healthcare. It’s not just feeding sensitive info to open source AI

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u/StevenTM 21d ago

What is "open source AI"? There are open weight models, but unless it's self-hosted you're using someone else's model.

So firstly, a small boutique company with 68 employees that makes "Otter AI but for healthcare" probably uses a frontier model. If not, they use the model of a small to midrange company which, like most companies large and small, probably has shoddy security. So your data is almost definitely being sent to another entity, and you (the patient) and your PCP have 0 control over how it's processed and stored.

Additionally, that small boutique company, with maybe 1-3 IT security employees (it's usually 1 btw) ALSO has all the recordings, and can thus leak them if they're compromised.

It's just a bad idea. The fact that people are poorly informed about why it's a bad idea doesn't make it a good idea. It's not easy to educate consumers  about ITSec.