Your AI judges patients by how they write, not their symptoms episode artwork

EPISODE · Sep 10, 2026 · 14 MIN

Your AI judges patients by how they write, not their symptoms

from The Podcast by KevinMD

What if medical AI judges you by how you write instead of what's actually wrong? A health care executive says it already does. Craig Hauben has spent 30 years in health care and the last several years researching AI, and he walks through studies showing that large language models trained on decades of human writing pick up on typos, misspellings, and emotional tone, then quietly route people away from the care they need. Close to 10 percent of the time patients who should have been seen were told not to come in, and women were hit hardest. This episode is based on his article "AI bias in health care reads the writer, not the symptom," published on KevinMD. You will learn why the bias survives even after the obvious warning signs are scrubbed, why ChatGPT-style tools can carry the same blind spots into the exam room, and why trusting the AI too quickly is the real trap. Press play to hear the three questions every clinician should ask before trusting AI with a patient. This episode is brought to you by ModMed. Welcome to your new AI-Powered Practice from ModMed. We're transforming specialty care by embedding AI Assistants across your entire workflow. Our all-in-one platform of EHR, patient engagement, practice management, and RCM helps reduce repetitive work while keeping you firmly in control. Trained on de-identified data from nearly a billion patient encounters, this isn't just smarter software. It's a new way of working for specialty medicine, more efficient and more connected to the patient experience. Start building your AI-Powered Practice at modmed.com. VISIT SPONSOR → https://www.modmed.com/ SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST → https://www.kevinmd.com/podcast

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Your AI judges patients by how they write, not their symptoms

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