The American Medical Association (AMA) uses the term “augmented intelligence” to explain AI’s role in healthcare. This means AI helps doctors instead of taking their place. AI is like an assistant that gives useful data, but doctors make the final calls about patient care.
In 2024, 66% of doctors in the U.S. said they use AI tools in their work. That is up from 38% in 2023, based on AMA research. Also, 68% of doctors see good sides to AI, but they still worry about how to use it well and about legal issues. AI is growing fast in clinics, so it is important to handle the rules and ethics for its use.
Physician liability means the legal duty doctors have when caring for patients. It means doctors must be responsible for their choices and actions that affect patient safety. Using AI tools makes this more complex. AI can help with diagnosis, treatments, checking risks, and automating tasks like scheduling. But it also raises questions about who is responsible if mistakes happen.
The AMA says clear rules about liability with AI are needed. They believe doctors must stay responsible for care decisions, even when AI helps. AI does not replace doctors’ judgment but supports it. Because of this, doctors should know what AI can and cannot do.
Liability involves:
Clearer guidelines help reduce confusion about doctors’ responsibilities and encourage safe use of AI.
The AMA works on policies for AI use in healthcare. They focus on ethical, fair, and clear use of AI. Their Digital Medicine Payment Advisory Group (DMPAG) creates coding and payment rules, such as CPT® codes for AI services. This helps with billing and reporting when AI is used.
In October 2025, the AMA started the Center for Digital Health and AI. This group involves doctors in making AI tools safe and practical for daily use. The AMA also gives educational resources and guides to help doctors and health groups use AI responsibly.
The AMA stresses that AI tools in clinics must protect privacy, security, and offer clear data. They also want policies that explain how responsible doctors are when AI is involved and support law changes to cover AI’s role in patient care.
Besides legal duties, AI brings ethical and rule-related challenges for doctors:
Doctors, policy makers, and tech experts should work together to create rules to handle these issues. Careful oversight is important so that doctors can trust AI tools and use them properly.
AI is not only used in diagnosis and treatment but also to improve office work. For practice leaders and IT managers, knowing how AI in workflow affects doctor responsibilities is important.
Simbo AI is one company that offers AI for phone answering and scheduling. This kind of AI can reduce staff work and let doctors focus on patients. Still, these automation systems affect clinic work and can also change what doctors need to watch over.
Main benefits of workflow automation include:
But, automation also brings new duties:
Careful handling of workflow AI can improve efficiency and keep responsibility clear in patient care.
Because AI adds complexity to decisions and office work, healthcare groups should set policies and training:
Practice leaders and IT managers must work to follow laws and create workflows that support safe AI use.
Using more AI in medical work needs a balance between trying new tools and keeping patients safe. Doctors are still responsible for their decisions, even if AI helps. That means being open and educated is important to share responsibility fairly.
The AMA agrees with this. They say AI is a tool to help doctors, not take their place. Their policies focus on ethical use, fairness, and clear information. This helps doctors trust AI.
Medical leaders should support doctors with good AI tools, solid evidence, training, and legal advice. This way, clinics can use AI to improve care while dealing with possible liability issues ahead of time.
As AI tools become more common in clinics and office work in U.S. healthcare, it is important to address doctor liability and responsibility. The AMA provides clear guidance that AI is a helper, not a replacement, for doctors’ judgment. Workflow automations, like Simbo AI’s phone systems, can reduce office work but create new responsibilities.
Practice leaders, owners, and IT teams need to work with doctors to make sure AI is used in a transparent, fair, and safe way. They should build systems to reduce risks, clarify who is responsible, and keep patient trust as technology grows in healthcare.
The AMA defines augmented intelligence as AI’s assistive role that enhances human intelligence rather than replaces it, emphasizing collaboration between AI tools and clinicians to improve healthcare outcomes.
The AMA advocates for ethical, equitable, and responsible design and use of AI, emphasizing transparency to physicians and patients, oversight of AI tools, handling physician liability, and protecting data privacy and cybersecurity.
In 2024, 66% of physicians reported using AI tools, up from 38% in 2023. About 68% see some advantages, reflecting growing enthusiasm but also concerns about implementation and the need for clinical evidence to support adoption.
AI is transforming medical education by aiding educators and learners, enabling precision education, and becoming a subject for study, ultimately aiming to enhance precision health in patient care.
AI algorithms have the potential to transform practice management by improving administrative efficiency and reducing physician burden, but responsible development, implementation, and maintenance are critical to overcoming real-world challenges.
The AMA stresses the importance of transparency to both physicians and patients regarding AI tools, including what AI systems do, how they make decisions, and disclosing AI involvement in care and administrative processes.
The AMA policy highlights the importance of clarifying physician liability when AI tools are used, urging development of guidelines that ensure physicians are aware of their responsibilities while using AI in clinical practice.
CPT® codes provide a standardized language for reporting AI-enabled medical procedures and services, facilitating seamless processing, reimbursement, and analytics, with ongoing AMA support for coding, payment, and coverage pathways.
Challenges include ethical concerns, ensuring AI inclusivity and fairness, data privacy, cybersecurity risks, regulatory compliance, and maintaining physician trust during AI development and deployment phases.
The AMA suggests providing practical implementation guidance, clinical evidence, training resources, policy frameworks, and collaboration opportunities with technology leaders to help physicians confidently integrate AI into their workflows.
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