DEAR DR. ROACH: My doctor’s office makes patients sign in for appointments on their electronic kiosks. When you sign in, you must accept that doctors are using an AI tool during your appointment. You cannot decline using AI; either you accept, or you cannot sign in for the appointment. It says that you can tell your doctor if you do not wish to use AI.

Here is the problem: Doctors use it anyways and get very mad when you request for them not to use AI. When you get your after-visit report of the appointment, it shows that they used AI. My question is, what can a patient do? I am sure that other hospitals are doing the same thing. Patients have rights, but they are ignoring them.

AI tools do make mistakes. Should we contact the state attorney general office or the Occupational Safety and Health Adminstration? They are not respecting patients’ wishes. It is only going to get worse as AI gets more predominant. — Anon.

ANSWER: It is increasingly common for physician’s offices to use AI scribes, which capture the conversation during the visit. AI uses this to create a clinical note, which your doctor can then edit. The idea is to improve the quality of the note and reduce the documentation time for your physician.

AI is not making clinical decisions, but you are right that it can still make mistakes, which might lead to incorrect information being put into your medical record. (Humans, including doctors, nurses and medical students, have also been making mistakes and putting wrong information into medical charts since medical charts began.)

You have an absolute right to opt out of the AI scribe. Your doctor should not get mad and should turn off the recording device for the AI scribe. It is likely that the medical records software automatically says that the note is made using AI, even if it wasn’t. If they still choose to use it, you have the option to choose a different physician (or an entire medical group), but I imagine that your doctor’s practice would rather you not do this.

I do not use AI scribes, but other physicians in my hospital system do. Most of my colleagues are happy with the results, although some feel like there are so many mistakes that they need to correct. So, it isn’t as helpful for them, and they eventually stop using it. I have a few patients who have been upset that some of their doctors use AI scribes due to concerns about privacy. But from what I have read, great care is taken to make sure that your medical information remains confidential with the AI scribe process.

DEAR DR. ROACH: About two weeks ago, I had a cystoscopy to check out my bladder. Three weeks prior to this, I had a scan to check the area for issues. In a meeting with my urologist last week, he said all was fine and that I have a small kidney stone developing.

Now I feel a slight pain in the area where I believe my right kidney is. Could this be the stone or a sign of something else? He scheduled my next appointment for a year from now. What are your thoughts? — C.P.M.

ANSWER: A few weeks is not normally enough time for a stone to go from being noticeable on a scan to being symptomatic. Although it’s possible, I am more concerned that you might have a complication from the cystoscopy, specifically a urine infection. Hopefully, this will turn out to be nothing, but a visit with the urologist or your regular doctor for a urine test would be wise — long before another year goes by.

Dr. Roach regrets that he is unable to answer individual letters, but will incorporate them in the column whenever possible. Readers may email questions to ToYourGoodHealth@med.cornell.edu. (c) 2026 North America Syndicate Inc.

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