Here in Canada ever since COVID most "visits" are a telephone call now. So the doctor just listens your words (same as a text input to an LLM) and orders tests (which can be uploaded to an LLM) if they need.
For a good 90% of typical visits to doctors this is probably fine.
The difference is a telehealth is much better at recognizing "I can't given an accurate answer for this over the phone, you'll need to have some tests done" or cast doubt on the patient's accuracy of claims.
Before someone points out telehealth doctors aren't perfect at this: correct, but that should make you more scared of how bad sycophantic LLMs are at the same - not willing to call it even.
Again, it's not that all telehealth doctors are great at this, it's that LLMs are awful at caving in to saying something with warnings the reader will opt to ignore instead of being adamant things are just too uncertain to say anything of value when continually prompted.
This is largely because an LLM guessing an answer is rewarded more often than just not answering, which is not true in the healthcare profession.
LLMs almost never reply with I don’t know. There’s been mountains of research as to why this is, but it’s very well documented behavior.
Even in the rare case where an LLM does reply with I don’t know go see your doctor, all you have to do is ask it again until you get a response you want.
It depends entirely on the local health care system and your health insurance. In germany for example it comes in 2 tiers. Premium or standard. Standard comes with no time for the patient. (Or not even being able to get a appointment)
In the US people on Medicaid frequently use emergency rooms as primary care because they are open 24/7 and they don’t have any copays like people with private insurance do. These patients then get far more tests than they’d get at a PCP.
Rarely. Most visits are done in 5 minutes. The physician that takes their time to check everything like you claim almost does not exist anymore.