What the AI will never answer on its own
- Everyone
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Clinicify’s AI sends a reply without a clinician only for general information questions whose answer is the same for every patient. Everything else goes to a clinician. This page sets out where that line sits.
What the AI may answer automatically
A question is answered automatically only if all of these are true:
| Condition | In practice |
|---|---|
| It’s impersonal | It doesn’t mention, or imply, the patient’s own body, results, symptoms, history, medication or circumstances |
| It asks what something is | What a test measures, what a term or unit means, how something works |
| The answer is the same for everyone | Nothing needs tailoring to the person asking |
| There’s no number to interpret | No result or reading waiting for a judgement |
| It’s settled general knowledge | Not about your clinic’s prices, availability or policies |
The AI must also be at least 85% sure. If it’s unsure, or can’t answer within these rules, it declines and the question goes to a clinician with a draft. Every automatic answer ends with: “This is general educational information. For questions about your own results, please speak with your clinician.” Clinicify adds that line itself, so it can’t be left out.
Always sent to a clinician
However the question is worded, these always go to a clinician:
- Symptoms: any description of how someone feels, or a change in their body.
- What something means for the patient: whether it’s serious, normal, concerning or dangerous, and how long something will take.
- Medication and supplements: doses, starting, stopping, switching and interactions.
- Suitability for a treatment, including aesthetic treatments and contraindications.
- Recommendations: “should I”, “do I need”, “is it worth”, “which is better”.
- Pregnancy, breastfeeding and fertility in any personal sense.
- Questions about children.
- Mental health crisis, self-harm or suicidal thoughts.
- Urgent or time-critical symptoms (see below).
- Fitness to fly or work, insurance, sick notes and anything medico-legal.
Urgent symptoms
Before the AI is involved at all, every question is checked against a fixed list of urgent symptoms. A match always goes to a clinician, whatever else was decided. The list covers:
| Area | Examples |
|---|---|
| Heart and breathing | Chest pain or tightness, struggling to breathe, palpitations |
| Stroke and neurological | Face drooping, slurred speech, sudden weakness on one side, seizures, fainting, sudden confusion |
| Bleeding | Heavy bleeding that won’t stop, coughing or vomiting blood |
| Allergic reaction | Throat tightness, facial swelling, swollen lips or tongue, difficulty swallowing |
| Infection | Sepsis, a rash that doesn’t fade, very high fever |
| Severe pain and vision | Severe abdominal pain, sudden loss of vision |
| Pregnancy | Bleeding in pregnancy, reduced baby movements |
| Mental health | Thoughts of suicide or self-harm, overdose |
When one of these is found, the patient sees at once: “If your symptoms are severe, sudden, or getting worse, call 999 or NHS 111 now. Do not wait for a reply here.”
The list matches on wording, so it will sometimes send you a routine question. That’s deliberate: a false alarm costs a clinician a few minutes.
Questions the AI never writes a reply to
- Admin questions (appointments, payments, whether results are back) get an automatic reply that points the patient to the right page of their portal and suggests contacting the clinic. The AI doesn’t write it.
- Messages about nothing to do with health or the clinic get a fixed reply. The AI only decides that the message is off-topic; it doesn’t write the words. If a message also mentions anything personal, clinical or urgent, it goes to a clinician instead.
What the AI never does
- It never diagnoses, interprets a patient’s results or makes a clinical decision.
- It never sends a reply to a clinical question. It writes a draft, and a clinician decides what’s sent.
- It never sees the patient’s record. For a clinical draft it’s given only the patient’s first name and the question.
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