What Thousands of AI Doctor Visits Reveal About American Health

What do people actually ask an AI doctor for?

Prescription patterns paint a portrait of a nation managing pain, chronic disease, and the complications of modern life

It's a question that reveals more than just consumer preferences. In an era when healthcare access is increasingly strained — appointment wait times stretching to weeks, physician shortages mounting, costs rising — where people turn when barriers are lowered tells us something important about unmet need.

Prescription data from Doctronic, an AI doctor and telehealth platform, offers a window into the health concerns driving Americans to seek care — and the patterns reveal as much about the state of American health as they do about the future of healthcare delivery.

Pain relief dominates. Ibuprofen ranks as the single most prescribed medication on the platform, with Tylenol close behind in second place. Together, they represent the largest share of all prescriptions written.

Chronic disease management follows. Levothyroxine for thyroid disorders, metformin for diabetes, and atorvastatin for cholesterol round out the top five. Omeprazole for acid reflux ranks in the top ten.

Then there are the surprises: magnesium ranks among the most prescribed items on the platform — a supplement, not a medication, appearing alongside drugs used to treat serious chronic conditions.

Taken together, the data sketches a portrait of American health in 2025 — and what people are willing to seek care for when the traditional barriers to access are removed.

A Nation in Pain

The dominance of pain relievers at the top of the list is striking but not surprising. Pain has become one of the defining health challenges of modern American life.

According to the CDC, an estimated 51.6 million U.S. adults experienced chronic pain in 2021 — roughly one in five Americans. Of those, 17.1 million experienced high-impact chronic pain, the kind that substantially restricts work and daily activities. Pain is now the leading reason Americans seek medical care.

The placement of ibuprofen and Tylenol as the top two prescriptions suggests pain management is a primary driver bringing people to AI healthcare. For many patients, managing chronic pain involves ongoing access to anti-inflammatories and analgesics — not as a cure, but as a way to function day to day.

The pattern may also reflect convenience and timing. Pain is often episodic and unpredictable — a flare-up that doesn't align with available appointment slots, a weekend injury, a headache that needs addressing now rather than in three weeks when the next opening appears on a provider's calendar.

Traditional healthcare struggles with this temporal mismatch. The average wait for a new patient appointment has risen to 26 days, and even established patients may wait a week or more for routine visits. For acute pain, that timeline doesn't work. Patients need relief now.

AI doctors offer access, which may explain why pain relief tops the list even though many of these medications are available over the counter. For patients seeking prescription-strength options, or who want clinical guidance on managing their pain safely, waiting weeks for an appointment isn't a viable option.

The Chronic Disease Layer

Below the pain relievers, the prescription data reveals America's chronic disease burden in stark terms.

Thyroid disorders, Type 2 diabetes, and high cholesterol are among the most prevalent conditions in the country, and the medications to treat them rank accordingly. The American Thyroid Association estimates 20 million Americans have some form of thyroid disease, with hypothyroidism — treated with levothyroxine — being the most common form. The CDC reports that 38 million Americans have diabetes, with the vast majority being Type 2.

These aren't acute complaints. They're lifelong conditions requiring ongoing medication access, often for decades. A patient diagnosed with hypothyroidism at 35 may take levothyroxine for the next 50 years. A patient started on metformin for Type 2 diabetes at 45 will likely need it for life, along with periodic monitoring and possible treatment adjustments.

The presence of omeprazole in the top tier adds another dimension to the picture. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases estimates that about 20 percent of people in the United States have GERD — a condition often linked to diet, stress, and lifestyle factors that have become endemic in modern American life. Obesity, sedentary work, irregular eating patterns, and chronic stress all contribute to acid reflux, making it as much a disease of how we live as a medical condition in its own right.

What these conditions share is a need for maintenance rather than intervention. Patients aren't seeking new diagnoses — they're managing conditions they already know they have, often with medications they've taken for years. The clinical question was answered long ago. The ongoing challenge is simply maintaining access.

The Magnesium Question

Perhaps the most unexpected finding is magnesium ranking among the most prescribed items on the platform.

Magnesium is technically a supplement, not a medication — yet it appears alongside prescription drugs used to treat serious chronic conditions. The likely explanation lies in magnesium's wide range of applications: muscle cramps, sleep support, anxiety, migraines, constipation, and general stress management.

Magnesium deficiency is common and often undiagnosed. Modern diets tend to be low in magnesium-rich foods, and certain medications — including the proton pump inhibitors used to treat GERD — can interfere with magnesium absorption. The result is a population that may be chronically low in a mineral essential for hundreds of biological processes.

But the presence of magnesium in the data may signal something deeper about the population seeking AI healthcare. These are people managing not just diagnosed conditions but the diffuse complaints of modern life — poor sleep, chronic stress, muscle tension, the physical toll of sedentary work and constant screen time.

These complaints don't fit neatly into traditional diagnostic categories. A patient who sleeps poorly, feels anxious, and experiences frequent muscle cramps may not have a disease that shows up on a lab test. They have a lifestyle that their body is struggling to accommodate.

Magnesium occupies a space between traditional medicine and wellness, and its ranking suggests AI healthcare is becoming a venue for both. Patients are seeking help not just for named conditions but for the accumulated wear of daily life.

The Bigger Picture

Taken together, the prescription data tells a coherent story about American health — one that extends beyond individual conditions to the broader challenges of living in modern America.

Pain is pervasive. Chronic disease is the baseline for tens of millions of adults. The stresses of modern life — poor sleep, anxiety, sedentary work, irregular eating patterns — have become medicalized concerns. And for all of it, people are seeking solutions through whatever channels offer the least friction.

AI doctors are one such channel. They don't replace traditional healthcare, but they do reveal what people want when access barriers are lowered. The answer, apparently, is help managing the daily realities of living in a body — pain, chronic conditions, and the accumulated toll of how we live now.

The data also reveals the limitations of a healthcare system designed around acute episodes and diagnostic encounters. The conditions dominating AI healthcare visits aren't mysteries requiring investigation. They're known quantities requiring maintenance. Yet traditional healthcare treats each touchpoint as if it were a new clinical question.

In a healthcare system where the AAMC projects a shortage of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036, the appeal of immediate access is clear. Patients aren't abandoning traditional care. They're supplementing it with options that meet needs the traditional system struggles to address.

The data is a mirror. What it reflects is a population seeking not dramatic interventions but steady, ongoing support for the health challenges that define everyday life. Pain management. Chronic disease maintenance. The diffuse complaints of modern existence.

AI healthcare is answering that call. The question is whether traditional healthcare will recognize the signal — and what it might mean for how we structure care in the decades to come.