{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/healthcare-practitioners-and-technical-workers-all-other/", "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": "Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Workers, All Other", "soc_code": "29-9099", "category": "Healthcare", "us_employment": 35010, "median_annual_wage": 65790 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 57, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 13, "embodiment": 14, "liability_shield": 8, "trust_premium": 12, "judgment_accountability": 10 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Placing a 21-lead polysomnography montage on a squirming patient, casting a residual limb for a socket, or programming a hearing aid to a real-time loudness discomfort response cannot be done from a screen, but the shift's other half — scoring sleep epochs, drafting the fitting note, chasing prior authorization, building the patient education handout — is already machine-drafted, which is what holds this at 13 rather than the 16+ a pure hands-on trade would earn.", "embodiment": "The work happens on a live body in a room you don't control: kneeling to align a prosthetic knee while the patient walks a corridor, taking an ear impression with cure-time on the clock, positioning a bariatric patient for an overnight study, or driving to a home or nursing facility for a device check — 14 rather than 18 because it's mostly clinical or lab space rather than roadsides and rooftops.", "liability_shield": "Most of this bucket runs on voluntary board credentials — ABC or BOC for O&P, RPSGT for sleep, NBC-HIS for hearing instruments — and only about half the states license hearing aid dispensers or O&P practitioners at all; the ordering physician or audiologist signs off on the plan, so an 8 reflects a certification that gatekeeps hiring but rarely puts your own name on the legal hook.", "trust_premium": "A transplant coordinator walking a family through listing criteria at 2 a.m., or a fitter the amputee returns to for eighteen months of socket revisions, builds a bond employers will not casually break — but the referral originates with the surgeon or physician, patients are routinely reassigned within a clinic, and much of the sleep-tech encounter is a single overnight with a stranger, which caps it at 12.", "judgment_accountability": "You decide when a tracing is artifact versus a genuine arrhythmia worth waking someone over, when a socket fit is failing versus a patient still desensitizing, when to stop a study for a safety concern — real calls, but they run inside AASM scoring rules, manufacturer fitting protocols, and physician-written orders, and the definitive interpretation and treatment decision belong to someone else, which is a 10 rather than a 15." }, "rationale": "This is a residual bucket — orthotic and prosthetic fitters, hearing instrument specialists, patient navigators, sleep and neurodiagnostic techs, transplant coordinators, cardiovascular device specialists — so the modal worker is a patient-facing technical specialist with a certification rather than a full license. The hands-on parts (fitting devices, placing electrodes, positioning patients, adjusting hardware on a real body) are robot-proof for the foreseeable future, but the documentation, insurance authorization, patient education scripting, and preliminary tracing/result interpretation that fill much of the day are exactly what AI now drafts and pre-reads. Credentialing is typically state-optional or board-voluntary, which leaves this group with a thinner regulatory wall than nurses or radiologic technologists.", "outlook": "Employment holds roughly steady through the 2030s but the job reshapes: less charting and authorization work, more hours spent physically with patients and devices, with the documentation-heavy sub-roles in this bucket shrinking fastest.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "State-level mandatory licensure (not voluntary board certification) for the sub-occupations currently exempt — e.g. states adopting licensure for orthotic/prosthetic fitters on the model of the ~20 states that already license O&P practitioners under ABC/BOC standards, or expanding hearing instrument specialist licensure to require a named licensee to sign the fitting record and hearing aid purchase agreement. Watch state legislature O&P/hearing-aid licensure bills and Medicare's requirement that custom orthotics/prosthetics be furnished by a qualified (state-licensed or ABC-certified) supplier for payment.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 5 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "CMS or accreditor rules requiring a credentialed human tech to attest to raw data quality on AI-scored studies — e.g. AASM accreditation standards requiring an RPSGT to review and sign each auto-scored sleep study epoch set, or the same for ABRET-registered techs on autoscored EEG before physician read. AASM already requires human review of automatic scoring; formalizing personal attestation raises this.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Transplant coordinator and cardiac device roles absorbing organ-acceptance and remote-monitoring triage decisions as OPTN/UNOS allocation changes push more time-critical accept/decline judgment onto coordinators; similarly if device clinic protocols name the specialist as the person who decides which remote alerts escalate. Documented as a delegated protocol with named accountability rather than physician-only.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Genuine two-tier occupation: if AI absorbs prior authorization drafting, education scripting, and preliminary tracing pre-reads, the residual day is device fitting on atypical anatomy, electrode placement on uncooperative or pediatric patients, and troubleshooting artifact — tasks where failure is tactile and patient-specific. Task-mix shift alone, no rule change needed.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Narrow route only: hearing aid and prosthetic markets where OTC/direct-to-consumer competition (FDA OTC hearing aid rule, 2022) has made professional fitting a paid differentiator — clinics marketing real-ear measurement and in-person gait tuning against mail-order fitting. Applies to a minority of this bucket; patient navigators and inpatient techs have no such route.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "Because this is a residual SOC bucket, no single lever moves the whole code — licensure gains would land on O&P fitters and hearing specialists while patient navigators and neurodiagnostic techs stay exposed. Realistic combined ceiling is roughly the low 70s, and only if state licensure spreads; without it the embodiment floor is the main protection." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 34700, "wage": 51530 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 32680, "wage": 54620 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 44100, "wage": 58750 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 41130, "wage": 60160 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 36900, "wage": 63630 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 36970, "wage": 64030 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 35010, "wage": 65790 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 0.9, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "licensed-practical-and-licensed-vocational-nurses", "title": "Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 73, "median_wage": 64400, "overlap": 83, "skills_to_close": [ "Operation and Control", "Mathematics", "Time Management" ] }, { "slug": "occupational-therapists", "title": "Occupational Therapists", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 79, "median_wage": 100330, "overlap": 82, "skills_to_close": [ "Operations Analysis", "Writing", "Instructing", "Learning Strategies" ] }, { "slug": "clinical-and-counseling-psychologists", "title": "Clinical and Counseling Psychologists", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 71, "median_wage": 100580, "overlap": 82, "skills_to_close": [ "Reading Comprehension", "Writing", "Active Learning", "Active Listening" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }