Only 22 percent of people feel confident they can spot a deepfake or an AI scam. That figure comes from a TrendLife survey of more than 10,000 people in nine countries, and it frames the problem facing medicine: fake doctors are now cheap to make, and few patients can tell.
“It’s really easy to use online generative capabilities,” said Dr. Musheer Ahmed, founder and CEO of Codoxo, a firm that uses AI to detect fraud and waste in healthcare. He described image tools where anyone can upload a photo of themselves and change the suit or dress to look more professional.
Fake doctors, minutes to build
Fergal Glynn, chief marketing officer at the AI security firm Mindgard, said scammers can produce a realistic-looking doctor in a lab coat, with credentials and a professional setting, within minutes and at almost no cost. They attach fake testimonials to supplements or unproven treatments and aim them at people searching online for health answers. “Since the ‘doctor’ doesn’t exist, there is nobody to hold accountable if anything goes wrong,” Glynn said.
George Gerchow, a faculty member at IANS and chief security officer at Bedrock Data, said criminals and rogue governments both use the technology. He has seen it firsthand. At MongoDB, he oversaw an investigation into suspicious activity tied to communications with a North Korean IP address, where a remote worker had used fake information and imagery to get through the company’s screening. “Anyone with a laptop can now do what only well-resourced threat actors could do two years ago,” Gerchow said.
Where patients get their information
A Pew Research Center survey found that 85 percent of Americans get health information from healthcare providers all or some of the time, and rated that information highly accurate. The same research found that nearly 60 percent consult social media and chatbots for health information at least part of the time: 36 percent social media, 22 percent a chatbot.
Glynn said the damage does not stop when a fake is exposed. Real patients can delay treatment, sometimes with serious consequences, when fake doctors flood social media with bogus cures. “Even when a deepfake is debunked, the information still keeps circulating,” she said.
The law is behind
The first action against a fake doctor online came earlier this year, when Pennsylvania sued the tech company Character.AI, alleging it let a chatbot impersonate a physician. According to the state, an investigator posing as a patient was told by the chatbot that it was licensed to practice medicine in Pennsylvania and the UK, and it supplied a fake Pennsylvania license number.
The case is a rarity. Most state and federal laws on deepfake images focus on explicit and electoral content. The American Medical Association has called for state and federal action, and Dr. Whyte said in a prepared statement: “We need strong action by federal and state lawmakers to protect physicians’ identities, ensure transparency, and stop this fraud.” Glynn noted the FDA can act on false health claims, but deepfakes “sit in a grey area without any dedicated federal legislation.”
For doctors, Gerchow recommended monitoring, a takedown plan and signed metadata on authenticated content, so a real video can be proved against a fake. Marty Hitzeman, director of marketing at Empist, advised verifying any substantial request through a separate, independent process.
The Federal Trade Commission lists five checks for patients weighing a claim: search the treatment’s name with words like “scam,” “review” or “complaint”; ask your own doctor first; treat unproven products as risky; remember that “natural” does not mean safe; and know that no government agency approves ads before they run.
