AI in the medical practice 2026: what works today, what applies legally, and what practices should check before using it

Use cases that work today

The tools that have taken hold in practices work with speech and text. They take administration off staff's hands or shift writing work, and they leave the clinical decision where it belongs.

• Phone assistance: answering calls, capturing requests, sorting callbacks.
• Appointment organisation: requests, reminders, refilling cancellations.
• Documentation of the consultation: recording the conversation, transcribing it and ordering it as a draft.
• Doctor's letter drafts from the conversation or from the record.
• Translation: documenting a conversation held in a foreign language, in German.
• Correspondence and forms: drafts for recurring texts.

What applies legally

Four sets of rules touch almost every AI application in the practice. § 201 StGB: a recording of the conversation needs the prior consent of everyone involved. § 203 StGB and GDPR: a vendor that processes conversation content is a person assisting and a data processor; that requires a contract, necessity and reviewed measures, with particular care for health data under Art. 9 GDPR. § 630f BGB: what enters the record is decided by the treating person, promptly and traceably.

The EU AI Act adds to this. Its Art. 4 has required operators, since February 2025, to ensure sufficient AI competence among the people who use AI systems; for a practice, that means a documented briefing of the team. The National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians also points out that the use of AI should be transparent to patients.

Is documentation software a medical device?

That is decided by the intended purpose the manufacturer declares. A tool that exclusively reproduces and orders what was said, and suggests no diagnosis, does not pursue a medical purpose within the meaning of the Medical Device Regulation. Products that themselves deliver clinical assessments must be reviewed separately; the practice should obtain the intended purpose in writing.

Cloud, local or hybrid

For speech and text tools, the data path decides how much review is needed. Cloud tools transmit the recording or text to the vendor. Local tools process on the practice computer. Hybrid tools keep the recording local and transmit only text. Any variant can be permissible; none is automatically so. The "Cloud or local" guide takes the three data paths apart.

What to check before a pilot

A pilot at your own practice is the only measurement that counts. Before that, these points belong on one page:

• Which task should the tool take on, and how will the practice know after two weeks whether it does?
• Where are audio, text and result processed, and is that stated in the contract?
• How is consent obtained and documented, and what happens on refusal?
• Who on the team is briefed, and who is the contact for access and deletion?
• How does the result reach the practice software, and who checks it beforehand?
• What does it cost after the pilot, and does the pilot end without automatic renewal?

The guides at a glance

The knowledge section goes deeper into each of these topics: the recording and its consent, the documentation duty, long and interrupted consultations, foreign-language conversations, choosing software with twelve concrete questions, the three data paths, and the path from draft to doctor's letter. Every guide starts with the answer, names its limits, and links to the official primary sources.

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