Using ChatGPT for health information may be quick, low cost, and provide a sense of privacy. However, it doesn’t always provide reliable, up-to-date, or consistent data.

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) conversational chatbot that generates responses to questions you ask it using language model processing.

Since its release in November 2022, many internet users have turned to ChatGPT to help manage their own healthcare. A survey found that 1 in 6 adults use AI chatbots for health information at least once a month.

Using ChatGPT for medical purposes may have several benefits. For instance, it can provide instant and free general information about symptoms, treatments, and prevention strategies for health conditions.

However, there are several risks associated with using ChatGPT for health information, especially when it comes to self-diagnosing.

Researchers agree that AI chatbots like ChatGPT cannot replace humans in providing personalized, accurate healthcare information. But they can be useful medical assistant tools for managing health conditions.

Keep reading to learn more about the possible benefits and drawbacks of using ChatGPT for healthcare information, and how to optimize your experience using it.

One of the most commonly reported benefits of using ChatGPT for health information is its accessibility, free cost, and convenience. If you have an internet connection, you can use ChatGPT to gather health information.

This makes ChatGPT particularly appealing for some people because you can access medical information instantly without waiting for an appointment or spending any money.

ChatGPT also provides a sense of anonymity and privacy that you might not feel when interacting with a doctor. This can make you feel more at ease speaking about personal health information if you usually feel uncomfortable or embarrassed.

Here are some other possible benefits of using ChatGPT.

Learning more about a health condition

Researchers agree that ChatGPT is an effective education tool, as it could convey general information about health conditions, such as symptoms, treatment options, and prevention methods.

It can also help translate complex health information into simpler terms, such as explaining possible reasons for symptoms in plain language.

This can make ChatGPT particularly useful if you’ve received a diagnosis for a health condition and want to learn more about possible treatment options and any warning signs to watch for.

However, it’s important to remember that ChatGPT is less effective for self-diagnosing. While it may provide general health information, this may not be useful for your personal situation.

Supporting you between doctor visits

A 2025 research review found that ChatGPT may be particularly useful for supporting you between doctor visits because it may:

  • help monitor symptoms and treatment progression
  • provide emotional support, coping mechanisms, and prevention advice
  • set up medication and appointment reminders

ChatGPT can also translate medical information from one language to another. This may be useful if you don’t fully understand an aspect of your management plan or want to formulate questions for your next doctor’s appointment.

Providing mental health support

ChatGPT may be an effective tool for managing feelings of stress and anxiety because it can provide coping strategies, self-help techniques, and emotional support.

However, ChatGPT isn’t a human. It often lacks the empathy, compassion, and assurance that you might get from a human.

The biggest risks or drawbacks of using ChatGPT for health information are that the responses it generates are not always accurate, consistent, up-to-date, or personalized.

AI chatbots generate responses by scraping through the sources they’ve been trained on.

But they’re not always trained with reputable medical journals, so the information they use may come from sources that haven’t been reviewed by certified medical professionals.

ChatGPT can also create false information or sources that don’t exist, known as “hallucinations.” These false claims are hard to spot because ChatGPT often uses long answers that may be beyond the grade 6 readability level recommended for online sources.

While this can make responses appear more authoritative, it can actually mask deficits in the content and create a false sense of knowledge, confidence, and reliability.

Healthcare professionals don’t recommend using ChatGPT to provide accurate and precise diagnostic information. Along with possible medical inaccuracies, this may be due to the following reasons:

  • It doesn’t provide consistent answers to the same queries.
  • It cannot process visual data.
  • It has limited emotional intelligence, so it may not be able to engage with you to “understand” your health history and personal circumstances.
  • It may have potential biases due to the information it’s been trained on.

It’s crucial to connect with a medical professional if you have any concerns about your healthcare. They can fully assess your personal, family, and medical history, among other important things.

Trust refers to a sense of belief and reliability, which is often built over time. It’s crucial in healthcare, especially in condition management.

It’s difficult to assess whether you can trust AI chatbots like ChatGPT. Your decision will depend on many factors, such as your personal experience with people in the past.

AI chatbots can sometimes provide accurate, effective, and actionable information, but they’re also known for giving inaccurate and inconsistent responses.

According to a 2024 research review, trust in healthcare contexts is often built in face-to-face conversations with doctors, medical specialists, and nurses.

On the one hand, it comes from feeling respected and listened to, and like you have several medical options. On the other, it’s about feeling like the medical professional has competency, fidelity, and integrity.

Limited research exists on how people trust AI chatbots like ChatGPT, but it’s hard to replicate personable attributes that come from human interaction.

Instead, trustworthiness with ChatGPT might come from matching the health information you receive with that from other, reputable sources.

How to find trustworthy health information online

While many healthcare topics are nuanced and complex, the internet landscape continues to evolve in ways that provide shorter and more streamlined answers to user queries.

As of September 2025, AI-generated overviews often appear first when you search for a health topic. Some of these overviews are useful, but they’re often inconsistent, inaccurate, and unreliable.

It’s important to source health information from reputable, verified sources. Some examples may include medical associations, government websites, and medical journals.

Yet, even these sources are not always up to date, consistent, or accurate, so it’s best to connect with a medical professional if you have any questions about your healthcare.

Learn more: How to Determine If Health Information Online Is Trustworthy

ChatGPT and other AI chatbots generate responses to a prompt, which is the text that you input into the chat box.

To get the most relevant answer possible, it’s important to be specific, contextual, and detailed. In most cases, you’ll have to refine your initial prompt based on the bot’s reply to get the best response possible.

Here are some tips to help optimize your prompt:

  • Be specific: Providing clear, concise, and specific information or questions will help the language model answer your question. For example, if your palate feels itchy, use “itchy palate” instead of “itchy mouth.”
  • Give context: Provide as much context as possible, including how you feel, any symptoms you experience, medications you take, lifestyle and dietary habits, etc.
  • Set the tone: You can ask ChatGPT to provide answers in a specific tone. For instance, you can ask for the information to be presented in a friendly, conversational tone to help you better understand complexities.
  • Validate sources: Ask for reputable medical journal sources, and double-check their validity on PubMed.

Is Healthline a reliable place to get health information?

At Healthline, we know that trust is earned, and creating trustworthy content is at the core of our mission.

To find the accurate, up-to-date answers you need, we analyze the approaches of several high quality sources by ensuring our content goes through several rounds of checks with our editorial and medical integrity teams before publishing.

Our team of writers, editors, and copy editors is regularly trained on research and sourcing best practices, and the in-house editorial team works on every piece of content before publication.

Content also undergoes a thorough medical review process. Our Medical Affairs team evaluates it ensure it’s evidence-based, medically accurate, and reflective of the latest information and care standards.

We are thoughtful in how we phrase and frame health topics so we don’t perpetuate bias that can contribute to health disparities and stigma.

Research from 2025 found that ChatGPT’s medical accuracy ranges between 20% and 95% in relatively general situations. The researchers concluded that ChatGPT shouldn’t be used alone to make a medical diagnosis.

ChatGPT may play a role in summarizing medical records. Other 2025 research found that it helped reduce administrative time to complete medical summaries by around 70%.

ChatGPT is an AI conversational chatbot that can provide quick and low cost health information based on your queries.

It may be beneficial for learning more general information about healthcare conditions, such as symptoms and treatments.

However, ChatGPT is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Researchers and healthcare professionals don’t recommend it as a self-diagnosis tool because it doesn’t always provide accurate, reliable, or personalized information.

If you have any health concerns, consider speaking with a healthcare professional. They can assess your family and medical history and perform a physical examination to help determine whether you need further testing.