Hi, I’m Doctronic. I can refill your prescription with AI if you’re in Utah.
— Doctronic welcome message
TechEyes Feb 2026: Dr AI
This month: Utah became the first state to allow AI to prescribe drug refills. Creepy and crazy ... or a solution to health care woes?
Click on image above to listen to column.
I wrote a column … for decades, always circling themes of tech, community, and business. Now I’m back! Before we begin this month’s column, wanted to check in: how are you doing on those New Years promises to trim back screen time? Me, I’m sort of clearing out Sundays and struggling to be Amazon free … and it’s harder than it seems!
“Hi, I’m Doctronic. I can refill your prescription with AI if you’re in Utah.”
Say what?
No, you are not reading 1950s sci fi pulp fiction – even it if sounds that way. Doctronic is a real company and the state of Utah has indeed given it license to write prescriptions.
What did Utah allow?
On Jan 6, Utah’s Department of Commerce announced it was becoming the first state to allow “an AI system to legally participate in medical decision-making for prescription renewals.”
It said that it saw this as a model which could “reshape access to care and ultimately improve care outcomes.”
Is Utah crazy?
Given the current reality of the US health care system, this might not be as outlandish as it sounds at first beep. The state argues that 80% of medication is recurring renewals – but people often let their medication lapse. They say that autonomous AI offers the potential to connect the dots, remove the gaps, and keep people connected, thereby improving health outcomes for the millions managing chronic conditions.
Democratizing health care?
According to his LinkedIn bio, the company’s co-founder Matt Pavelle received his BS in Computer Science from Carniege Mellon in 1998, did the serial entrepreneur run founding more than 10 companies, and launched Doctronic in 2024. His tag line? Democratizing healthcare.
That’s a pretty noble goal. Is AI the way to get there?
Lots of company
More than one person thinks so – the investment field lies flooded with AI + healthcare entries … companies that offer clinical assistance to human doctors, modeling responses to drugs based on data not animals, doing triage and setting appointments, identifying breast cancer, reading radiology scans, the list goes on and on. One almost begins to get the idea that health care might be the next job category deleted by tech.
Doctronic sounds like it falls firmly into that category.
What does it do?
“Our AI-powered doctor is trained exclusively on peer-reviewed medical sources, and its treatment plans match those of board-certified clinicians 99.2% of the time,” croons its soothing marketing copy, complete with an un-peer reviewed link proving its statement.
“It’s designed to synthesize, analyze, and summarize information, providing real-time insights and plans of action,”
Interestingly, this AI doc wants it both ways. It offers consumers consults with the AI Doc and also tells health care pros that its tool can be “white labeled” for your clinic – that is, you can license this with your brand and offer up Dr. AI directly.
Reality check
Are you cringing about now? I was at first too, but then I stepped back.
Reality check: we do have a big gap in health care. By and large, people no longer have trusted relationships with health care providers; the iconic family doc of old no longer exists. Insurance access, costs, and flat out availability of health care professionals create an environment where Dr. AI doesn’t look so bad.
A triage tool by any other name
Dig into Doctronic a bit more deeply and you suddenly realize what it actually delivers is a triage tool drawing on lots of data to make suggestions and offer options. Its knowledge base draws on medical cases. It offers services 24/7 and doesn’t require transportation, germ-filled waiting rooms, or onerous paperwork. And it surely can’t be any worse than Internet medical doom scrolling!
Welcome Dr. AI?
In Utah’s example, people were falling off medications for chronic conditions as their prescriptions ran out. Many places share this challenge – across the country, including here on Cape Cod, we see a shortage of health care providers creating long lead times to appointments, a lack of health insurance/funds to pay for appointments, challenging logistics getting to the physical location, and a general discomfort with in-person visits. In light of that, Dr. AI might not be so creepy or crazy after all
More information:
Doctronic – https://www.doctronic.ai/
Utah media release – https://commerce.utah.gov/2026/01/06/news-release-utah-and-doctronic-announce-groundbreaking-partnership-for-ai-prescription-medication-renewals/
