The Task Exposure Indexv2026.Q3
Occupation · SOC 29-1215.00 · Job Zone 5

AI exposure: Family Medicine Physicians

Diagnose, treat, and provide preventive care to individuals and families across the lifespan. May refer patients to specialists when needed for further diagnosis or treatment.

Reading this score

computed

Family Medicine Physicians is one of the unusual cases where capability and friction are both high. Current systems can produce a great deal of this work, with average capability across its tasks at 2.1 out of 4. Only 19.2% of the weighted task load comes out as exposed, because 31.4% of it runs into something structural. Jobs in this band tend not to disappear. They change shape, and the person stays.

What holds the line here is verification cost. Across this occupation's 12 tasks it averages 2.75 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, checking the output costs more than producing it. Where an undetected error is expensive, dangerous or irreversible, the economics change. Someone has to verify the work, and verifying can cost as much as doing it. This is the friction most likely to fall as tools for checking improve.

The most exposed thing this job does is Advise patients and community members concerning diet, activity, hygiene, and disease prevention, at 40.0%. The least is Prescribe or administer treatment, therapy, medication, vaccination, and other specialized..., at 4.1%. A gap of 35.9% between two parts of the same job is the reason this index publishes at task level. An occupation-wide number would have hidden both.

Within healthcare practitioner and technical occupations, this one is more exposed than most. The median across the 89 roles in the group is 18.4%, and only 40 of them score higher than this. Occupational families are not uniform, and the spread inside them is often wider than the gap between them.

What would move this score. Of 12 tasks, 1 are currently banded exposed, 8 assisted and 3 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take a change in who is permitted to sign the work, which is a question for regulators rather than for engineers. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.

Where the score comes from

judged

Every task is scored through the standardised work activities it maps to. These are this occupation’s averages on the six rubric dimensions. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.

DimensionMeanScale
Capability2.060-4
Embodiment0.610-3
Presence1.780-3
Accountability2.670-3
Context1.970-3
Verification cost2.750-3

What this means in practice

Roles in this band tend to change shape rather than disappear. The output gets drafted faster and the person moves toward review, judgment and accountability. The useful question is not whether to use these tools but who is trusted to sign off on what they produce.

Task by task

12 tasks, O*NET 31.0
TaskExposedAssistedUntouchedImportanceBand
Advise patients and community members concerning diet, activity, hygiene, and disease prevention.40.0%35.0%25.0%4.76exposed
Collect, record, and maintain patient information, such as medical history, reports, or examination results.35.0%40.0%25.0%4.99assisted
Prepare government or organizational reports which include birth, death, and disease statistics, workforce evaluations, or medical status of individuals.35.0%40.0%25.0%3.64assisted
Order, perform, and interpret tests and analyze records, reports, and examination information to diagnose patients' condition.29.2%33.3%37.5%4.99assisted
Plan, implement, or administer health programs or standards in hospitals, businesses, or communities for prevention or treatment of injury or illness.29.2%33.3%37.5%3.86assisted
Refer patients to medical specialists or other practitioners when necessary.16.7%33.3%50.0%4.64assisted
Monitor patients' conditions and progress and reevaluate treatments as necessary.13.3%36.7%50.0%4.97assisted
Explain procedures and discuss test results or prescribed treatments with patients.13.3%36.7%50.0%4.96assisted
Coordinate work with nurses, social workers, rehabilitation therapists, pharmacists, psychologists, and other health care providers.13.3%36.7%50.0%4.49assisted
Direct and coordinate activities of nurses, students, assistants, specialists, therapists, and other medical staff.5.0%20.0%75.0%4.66untouched
Train residents, medical students, and other health care professionals.5.0%20.0%75.0%3.14untouched
Prescribe or administer treatment, therapy, medication, vaccination, and other specialized medical care to treat or prevent illness, disease, or injury.4.1%12.6%83.3%5.00untouched

Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean. 1 task(s) lacked a usable O*NET weight and are shown but excluded from the weighting.

Occupations either side of this one

The four closest scores in the same occupational family, then the four closest anywhere in the index.

Read this carefully. Exposure is not displacement. A high score means current AI systems can produce this work, not that anyone will stop paying a person to do it. Adoption depends on economics, regulation and inertia that this index deliberately does not model. How the score is built.