The Transparency Gap: Why 70% of Patients Demand to Know When AI Touches Their Care
New survey reveals widespread patient expectations for AI disclosure clash with current healthcare practices, as lawsuits challenge undisclosed use of clinical documentation platforms.
A striking disconnect has emerged between patient expectations and healthcare industry practices around artificial intelligence: while more than 70% of Americans say it's "extremely important" for providers to disclose AI use in diagnostic decisions, nearly half of survey respondents remain unsure whether AI is even being used in their hospitals or doctors' offices at all.
The findings, from a June 2025 Pew Research Center survey of nearly 5,000 U.S. adults, arrive as class action lawsuits against major health systems spotlight the consent challenges surrounding AI clinical documentation tools. Legal actions against Sutter Health and Memorial Care over alleged undisclosed use of Abridge AI's platform underscore the urgency of establishing transparent AI deployment protocols.
Patients Want Disclosure Across All AI Applications
The Pew survey reveals that patient demand for transparency extends well beyond high-stakes diagnostic AI. Majorities of respondents want healthcare providers to disclose AI use not only when analyzing medical scans, diagnosing conditions, or explaining lab results, but also for administrative applications including taking appointment notes, ordering prescription refills, and scheduling medical visits.
This broad expectation for disclosure suggests patients view AI involvement in any aspect of their care as material information they deserve to know—a perspective that may surprise healthcare organizations that have treated administrative AI as routine back-office technology.
Legal Challenges Test Consent Boundaries
The rapid adoption of AI clinical documentation platforms has outpaced the development of standardized consent practices. Abridge AI, the real-time clinical documentation platform at the center of current litigation, has been deployed across Kaiser Permanente's 40 hospitals and 600+ medical offices in 2024, and rolled out to approximately 2,000 Mayo Clinic clinicians serving over 1 million patients in early 2025.
Plaintiffs in the Sutter Health and Memorial Care lawsuits allege that medical staff used AI to record confidential physician-patient communications without permission, violating state and federal law. Kaiser Permanente has stated that the tool requires patient consent and that AI-generated notes are reviewed by humans before entry into medical records.
Andrew Crawford, Senior Counsel of Data and Privacy at the Center for Democracy and Technology, provided expert commentary on the survey findings, noting the gap between patient expectations and current transparency practices.
HIPAA Coverage and the Path Forward
Patient information entered into AI systems remains covered by HIPAA privacy rules, providing a baseline regulatory framework. However, the survey results suggest that technical compliance may not satisfy patient expectations for meaningful transparency about how AI influences their care.
Healthcare providers now face a critical decision point: establish proactive AI disclosure policies that align with patient expectations, or risk legal challenges and erosion of trust as AI adoption accelerates. The operational benefits of AI clinical documentation—freeing clinicians to focus on patient interaction rather than note-taking—must be balanced against rigorous accuracy validation and explicit consent protocols.
With 70% of patients demanding transparency and nearly half uncertain about current AI use, the healthcare industry's window for getting ahead of the disclosure issue may be closing rapidly.
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