{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/family-medicine-physicians/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Family Medicine Physicians",
    "soc_code": "29-1215",
    "category": "Healthcare",
    "us_employment": 107510,
    "median_annual_wage": 244180
  },
  "verdict": "SAFE",
  "risk_resistance": 84,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 13,
    "embodiment": 15,
    "liability_shield": 20,
    "trust_premium": 18,
    "judgment_accountability": 18
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Differential diagnosis from an undifferentiated complaint — the 15-minute slot that opens with 'I'm just tired' and has to end with a decision about whether this is anemia, depression, or occult malignancy — resists automation, but a genuinely large share of the workday is chart review, refill authorization, guideline-driven screening intervals, USPSTF-conformant health maintenance, and inbox triage that algorithms handle competently, which is what puts this at 13 rather than 17.",
    "embodiment": "Otoscopy, abdominal palpation, pelvic and prostate exams, punch biopsies, cryotherapy, IUD insertion, joint injections and casting all require a physician's hands on a body in an exam room, but this is a controlled clinical environment with staff, equipment, and no roof to climb — hence 15 rather than the 19 of a wildland paramedic.",
    "liability_shield": "State medical licensure, DEA registration for controlled substances, and board certification are hard legal gates; the prescription and the note carry your NPI, malpractice exposure attaches personally under state standard-of-care law, and no software can be the physician of record — this is the definitional 20.",
    "trust_premium": "Continuity is the clinical instrument: knowing that this patient's blood pressure is only high in your office, that this family does not vaccinate and why, that a stoic 60-year-old farmer describing 'indigestion' means something serious — panel loyalty over decades is why patients follow you when you change practices, and only the fact that urgent-care and locum family medicine is genuinely transactional keeps it off 20.",
    "judgment_accountability": "You decide alone whether chest pain goes to the ED or home with a follow-up, whether to taper a long-term opioid patient, whether a child's fever justifies a lumbar puncture, and whether to file a mandated abuse report — high-stakes calls made on incomplete data with no specialist in the room, though referral to cardiology or surgery does distribute the hardest decisions, which is why 18 not 20."
  },
  "rationale": "The documentation half of family medicine — visit notes, prior-auth letters, referral summaries, coding, patient-portal message drafts, guideline lookup — is already being absorbed by ambient scribes and clinical decision support, and that is real relief rather than real displacement. What remains is the part that pays: laying hands on a patient, examining an ear or an abdomen, doing skin biopsies and joint injections, deciding which of six vague complaints in a 15-minute slot is the dangerous one, and signing the prescription under a license you personally answer for. Longitudinal relationships with families over decades are the product, not a wrapper around it.",
  "outlook": "By 2035 the paperwork burden shrinks sharply and AI handles much of the low-acuity triage, but demand for licensed family physicians who examine, prescribe, and take responsibility outstrips supply.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift: as ambient scribes (Abridge, Nuance DAX) and inbox drafting absorb documentation and portal replies, the residual day concentrates into physical exam, in-office procedures (skin biopsy, joint injection, IUD placement, laceration repair), and undifferentiated-complaint triage — the tiers AI cannot close. Watch for procedure-heavy visit mix and panel size rising per physician without note-writing time.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Continued growth of direct primary care and concierge memberships (Atlas MD-style, ~$70-100/month) where the explicit product is a named physician's continuity — patients paying cash outside insurance for human relationship is the cleanest possible demonstration of a human-specific premium. Also watch payer recognition of longitudinal-relationship codes (G2211 add-on, live since 2024) which pays specifically for continuity.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "If scope rules or malpractice carriers formalize the family physician as the accountable supervisor of AI-triaged and NP/PA-delivered panels — i.e. signing off on decisions made by others and by software across a larger panel — the role becomes almost purely consequential-call ownership. Watch state collaborative-practice agreements and carrier underwriting questions about AI supervision.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Already at 84 with liability_shield maxed; realistic headroom is a few points from task-mix concentration and continuity pricing. The real risk to this score is not AI but scope-of-practice expansion for NPs/PAs paired with AI decision support, which erodes the liability shield's exclusivity from the human side, not the machine side."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 109370,
        "wage": 205590
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 98590,
        "wage": 207380
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 102930,
        "wage": 239200
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 100940,
        "wage": 211300
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 112010,
        "wage": 224640
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 107950,
        "wage": 238380
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 107510,
        "wage": 244180
      }
    ],
    "from": 2019,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -1.7,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": false
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}