Patients send 2M messages to ChatGPT. How can docs respond?
Healthcare providers can adjust communication strategies to account for healthcare consumer use of AI tools like ChatGPT.
Healthcare consumers are relying on ChatGPT to help them manage their healthcare, with a new report from the AI chatbot's creator, OpenAI, revealing that users have sent millions of messages to parse through medical bills, insurance claims and medical jargon.
Worldwide, about a quarter of ChatGPT's 800 million regular users asks a healthcare-related question weekly, OpenAI said, referencing an internal assessment of the company's data.
This comes amidst a backdrop of a healthcare information problem, OpenAI added. The report references a West Health and Gallup Poll published toward the end of 2025, revealing that Americans give the U.S. healthcare system a C average, driven in large part by poor cost scores. Patients have also previously reported low trust levels in medical experts, including public health bodies.
OpenAI indicated that its ChatGPT tool helps fill that void, although it should be noted that the report can be considered product marketing.
Somewhere between 1.6 and 1.9 messages each week focused on health insurance, health plan comparisons, healthcare price transparency, claims and billing questions, eligibility and enrollment and coverage or cost-sharing details, OpenAI said.
What's more, OpenAI suggested that ChatGPT helps fill a care access void. Notably, patients have reported that healthcare access in the U.S. could improve, with respondents in the West Health and Gallup Poll reporting long wait times and long travel distances to providers.
According to OpenAI, ChatGPT helps fill in those gaps, noting that 7 in 10 healthcare conversations with the AI chatbot happen outside of normal clinic hours.
This trend is more pronounced in rural areas, where healthcare access is more challenging. OpenAI reported 600,000 health-related messages per week in rural communities. Zeroing in on rural healthcare deserts, the company reported 580,000 messages sent during a single four-week period at the end of last year.
Managing Dr. ChatGPT
Although the OpenAI report dives into some ChatGPT use cases and explores proposals for updating AI policies in healthcare, it does not discuss questions of information accuracy, bias and patient trust.
Moreover, it does not assess the impact that patient use of ChatGPT can have on the patient–provider relationship.
Although agentic AI and AI chatbots have the potential to streamline some patient–provider communication, especially over secure direct messaging, some industry experts still worry that patients doing their own research and consulting with Dr. ChatGPT could get in the way of their diagnostic relationships with their clinicians.
At the end of 2025, a group of researchers outlined some key strategies to work with patients who have consulted AI medical advice.
Healthcare professionals working with patients who have gotten consults from large language models, like ChatGPT, must first acknowledge the information vacuum that led to patients' use, the researchers advised. Without access to healthcare, medical information patients can trust and transparent billing practices, it is natural for patients to lean on AI chatbots.
After acknowledging patient needs, providers can explain that there are often discrepancies between providers and AI tools -- just like there are sometimes differences in opinion between providers themselves. This can open the door for a discussion about the promise -- and the peril -- of large language model chatbots, the researchers said.
Finally, providers can view the interaction as an opportunity for shared decision-making between themselves and the patient.
Ultimately, healthcare consumer use of tools like ChatGPT is not going away. Indeed, OpenAI said 3 in 5 U.S. adults have used AI tools for their health or healthcare in the past three months to check for symptoms, prepare for visits or translate medical jargon.
It will be key for healthcare providers to examine how large language models will affect their diagnostic relationships with patients and adjust their communication strategies accordingly.
Sara Heath has reported news related to patient engagement and health equity since 2015.
