It can start quietly enough: a patient pulls out a phone during an appointment and says, “I just want to ask you about this,” and the screen shows a video with millions of views, telling people that a common medication is dangerous or that some untested supplement is a cure. Or it can start around a dinner table, when a well-meaning relative shares a frightening story about vaccines that they heard from a friend, and suddenly a routine visit becomes a difficult conversation. More and more, physicians say these moments are not occasional interruptions to their work—they are becoming central to it. According to a new survey from the Physicians Foundation, which was covered by Healthtech Analytics’ Sara Heath, the sense that misinformation is increasingly shaping patient care has become far more intense. Just a year ago, 24% of doctors said patients were being influenced by misinformation “a great deal.” Now that number has jumped to 31%. That may look like a modest increase in percentage points, but to doctors it does not feel modest. It feels like another layer of strain placed on a medical system that is already stretched thin. It means doctors are using scarce minutes to reassure, explain, and undo false narratives instead of focusing on diagnosis, treatment, and healing. And one of the most important findings in the survey is also one of the most surprising: physicians are not pointing their fingers at artificial intelligence chatbots. While public debates are full of warnings about deepfakes and AI-generated health advice, the doctors surveyed say the real sources of misinformation are older, more familiar, and more human than large language models. Social media, gossip, and charismatic influencers are still doing the most damage in exam rooms. That does not mean AI is harmless, but it suggests that the medical community is still struggling to correct misinformation before it reaches patients—not because the technology is too new, but because people have always listened to the voices they trust.
When the physicians were asked specifically where patients were encountering harmful health information, social media led the list, with 85% of doctors identifying it as a major source. That is probably not surprising to anyone who watches wellness trends explode online or sees the same questionable videos passed around in community groups. But it is important to realize that social media is not just one thing. It is a collection of voices, some anonymous and some famous, some earnest and some deliberately manipulative. Following closely behind social media, each named by 74% of physicians, were word-of-mouth and social media influencers. The pairing might seem odd at first: one is old and local, the other is new and global. But they share a powerful trait. Both are built on personal relationships and emotional connection. A patient may not know a scientist, but they know their neighbor who says statins ruined her knees. They may not understand a randomized clinical trial, but they feel loyal to a YouTube personality who speaks confidently into the camera and seems to care about their health. This is one reason why simply presenting facts is not enough to fight misinformation. It is not that patients are incapable of understanding medical evidence. It is that they are human beings who evaluate information based on trust, and trust often flows through familiar voices. When a family member says “I heard that this treatment is poison,” the doctor is competing with someone who has a long history of love and credibility with the patient, not with a random stranger. At the same time, only 3% of physicians pointed to AI chatbots as the top source of misinformation. That is a remarkably low number, especially given all the headlines about chatbots offering bizarre or medically dangerous answers. It could mean that patients are not yet mentioning chatbots as their sources. It could also mean that generative AI is already working behind the scenes of social media and search engines, shaping what people see without ever being named. A patient may read a fearful blog post or watch a polished video that was drafted by an algorithm and not realize how it was produced. But in the clinical moment, doctors are not hearing “the chatbot told me.” They are hearing “I saw this online,” or “a friend told me,” or “there must be something to it because everyone is talking about it.” That distinction matters because it shapes how misinformation should be corrected. It is not enough to build better AI. Society also needs to rebuild trust in reliable health voices, and to help patients recognize why certain sources feel so persuasive.
The effects of misinformation are far from abstract. They are landing in doctor’s offices in the form of delayed treatments, avoidable emergencies, and an exhausting amount of anxiety. Two-thirds of physicians say misinformation is harming the quality of care they can provide. Imagine what that means in practice: a patient with a treatable condition refuses to fill a prescription because they read that the drug is part of a conspiracy. Another patient cancels a necessary scan because someone told them that the procedure will lead to early-stage cancer. A third patient keeps changing medications without telling their doctor because they are trying a supplement that an influencer promised would work better. Each of these decisions has consequences, and doctors see them up close. They see patients come back later with conditions that have become worse, requiring more aggressive treatment and causing more suffering. They also see the emotional toll. Sixty-five percent of physicians report that misinformation is increasing patient anxiety, and that is understandable. People who are exposed to false health claims are often frightened by them. They are warned to distrust doctors, to fear tests, to believe that everyday medications are poisoning them, and to think that official medical organizations are hiding the truth. Living inside that story is scary. Patients bring that fear to their appointments, and doctors must then act as emotional counselors as well as medical experts. Worse, over a third of physicians say misinformation has directly eroded trust in them. This is a particularly painful finding because a strong patient-physician relationship depends on trust. When a child is sick, or when a person receives a difficult diagnosis, they need to believe that their doctor is on their side. Misinformation quietly undermines that bond. It teaches people to be suspicious, to question everything, and to search for hidden motives in standard medical care. Physicians are not merely feeling annoyed; they are feeling the collapse of an important relationship. They still go to work, still listen, still try to help, but they know that for some patients, they will never be fully trusted no matter what they say.
Perhaps the most uncomfortable finding in the survey is that doctors do not reserve their criticism for internet cranks or wellness influencers alone. In a striking result, 28% of physicians say government health agencies “very often” spread misinformation themselves, and another 39% say they do so “sometimes.” Taken together, more than two-thirds of doctors believe that some of the misinformation patients encounter comes from the very institutions that are supposed to be official sources of truth. This is not necessarily a claim about deliberate lies. It may reflect frustration with changing public health guidance, overly cautious warnings, clumsy messaging, or the perception that political pressures sometimes shape official statements. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, doctors lived through frequent reversals of advice about masks, treatments, and transmission. Some of those reversals were necessary as scientists learned more. But from the perspective of exhausted physicians, they created an enormous challenge. Doctors were expected to tell patients one thing in April, then a different thing in July, and then a completely different thing by October. Patients understandably became confused, and some concluded that public health was not based on evidence but on guesswork or political calculation. Doctors themselves bore the awkward burden of explaining why they had been saying something different a few months earlier. This is why the survey’s finding about government agencies should not be dismissed as anti-science sentiment. It is a warning that official health messages have lost some of their power to persuade, both in the eyes of the public and in the eyes of physicians. It means the simple solution of “refer patients to official websites” no longer works as well as it once did. The credibility of institutions cannot be assumed; it needs to be repaired. If doctors themselves are skeptical of government guidance, then patients will be too, and misinformation will continue to fill the gap between what official sources say and what people are willing to believe. The problem, in other words, is not only that bad actors spread lies. It is also that trusted voices have been weakened, leaving a vacuum that louder and more confident voices are eager to fill.
Against that backdrop, there is one piece of encouraging news in the survey: nearly all physicians say they feel equipped to correct misinformation when given the opportunity. They know how to talk to patients. They understand how to explain risks and benefits. They have skills in empathy, communication, and patient education that cannot be replaced by a video or a press release. But the survey exposes a painful catch: they do not have enough time to do it. Modern medical appointments are often only fifteen or twenty minutes long. In that tiny window, a doctor must review the patient’s history, check vital signs, ask about symptoms, make a diagnosis, order tests, prescribe medication, and answer questions. If a patient has been deeply influenced by misinformation, they may not be satisfied with a quick answer. They want a detailed explanation. They want to understand why a study on social media is misleading, why a celebrity’s health advice might be wrong for them, and why a doctor is recommending something different from what a prominent influencer said. That kind of conversation cannot be squeezed into a rushed visit. Yet doctors are trying to do exactly that, often without any additional support. Some physicians send extra messages after hours to reassure worried patients. Some call family members to explain a treatment plan. Some print out articles and mark key passages. That dedication is real, but it is also exhausting. It contributes to burnout, and it takes time away from other patients and from physicians’ own lives. The survey suggests that doctors are not asking for sympathy. They are asking for structural help. They need longer appointments for patients who are caught in misinformation, or access to health educators who can reinforce medical messages, or better digital tools that offer accurate information in the kind of quick, visual, shareable formats that so often circulate falsehoods. Without that kind of support, the burden falls entirely on physicians, and the health care system as a whole will continue to feel the weight of the damage misinformation causes.
What makes this survey so human is not just the statistics. It is the story beneath them: a doctor and a patient sitting in a small room, trying to understand one another, while the outside world is shouting contradictory messages. Most patients do not go to a doctor intending to be misinformed. They are usually trying to do the best they can for their health. They are listening to friends, family, social media, and public figures because those voices feel present and personal. When they repeat false claims, they are not showing distrust of medicine as much as they are showing a need for trustworthy connection. Doctors understand this better than anyone. They see it every day. They know that shaming patients for believing misinformation does not work. They know that simply reciting facts often is not enough. What does work, according to physicians themselves, is building ongoing relationships where patients feel listened to and respected. That requires time, resources, and a public culture that supports good information. The survey also offers a possible opportunity: because doctors are not blaming AI chatbots, there is room to think carefully about how artificial intelligence could be used to help rather than harm. If chatbots are not yet the main source of misinformation, public health leaders still have a chance to shape how they deliver information—by supporting accurate online sources, requiring transparency from technology companies, and helping patients interpret what they find. But no algorithm will replace the role of a doctor who looks a patient in the eye and says, “I hear you, I understand your concern, and here is what I recommend.” Misinformation is getting worse, but so is physician willingness to confront it. The danger lies in expecting them to solve this problem tirelessly and alone. They can correct the record, calm fears, repair trust, and guide patients back on track—if they are given enough time and support. In an era of information overload, that human connection may be the most powerful tool in medicine. It deserves to be protected, funded, and valued not as an afterthought, but as an essential part of healing.