Alberta’s plan to allow patients to bypass physicians to get diagnostic medical testing is raising alarm bells at the Alberta Medical Association (AMA).

“We do not see a role for patients directing diagnostic testing without a physician involved,” Dr. Brian Wirzba said. 

“Is it the right test? Who’s going to follow up? And is this going to already overburden a public system that’s already strained?”

The AMA has launched a new video at informedreform.ca to promote a campaign aimed at advocating for better health-care system reforms in Alberta, focused on keeping physicians involved in the decision-making process to “ensure that patient care is prioritized.”

“We know why this is being brought forward,” Wirzba told Global News. “There’s significant access issues. Patients are waiting far too long for diagnostic testing — they’re frustrated and concerned about their health.”

Primary Health Minister Adriana LaGrange introduced Bill 29, the Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2026, in April. If passed, it will allow for rules to fast-track some medical tests without a referral from a health practitioner.

LaGrange said it’s the first step in a previously announced plan to expand privately delivered medical tests.

“This is about adding capacity, not replacing our public system,” LaGrange told reporters at a news conference before the bill was tabled.

Global News made multiple requests to the minister’s office for an interview about the bill and to address the concerns that have been raised, but her office declined the request — referring us back to that previous news conference.

LaGrange declined to say which specific medical tests may be included or how the province may reimburse costs. She said those details will be clarified in regulations that will be crafted in the coming months.

In a video released in the fall, Premier Danielle Smith and LaGrange said reforms will permit Albertans to purchase any private diagnostic screening and testing service they wish.

“This includes MRIs, CT scans, full body scans, bloodwork — you name it,” LaGrange said in the video.

Smith said at the time if a privately purchased test identifies a new life-threatening condition, the government will reimburse the costs of that test.

The province says current access to publicly funded preventive testing with no out-of-pocket payments requires referrals from a doctor, nurse practitioner, physiotherapist or dentist.

Some private clinics and health facilities already provide preventive testing services, but most still require provider referrals.

There are also publicly funded self-referral screening programs delivered through private clinics, including for mammograms, with no out-of-pocket costs.

The AMA is raising questions about the cost of the testing — not to the patients, but to the system down the road.

Research done by the organization shows it could actually cost taxpayers up to $1 million more per year because of incidental findings that lead to further testing and sometimes invasive interventions.

The process for whether or not a test is clinically necessary is not straightforward with several factors going into the decision, including family history, environmental history, age, risk factors and symptoms.

While an incidental finding may seem significant to someone without a medical background, Wirzba said, just as we all have different freckles and moles on our skin, our insides also look different.

“For those patients where there’s an abnormality that actually is clinically significant — like an early cancer or something else that can be intervened upon in a reasonable way that was really going to impact their health — absolutely that’s a good thing,” he said.

“The problem is for every one of those that we find, depending on the test, there may be 26 patients who actually also have abnormalities — none of which would have been clinically significant.”

Without the clinical history, once an abnormality is found, there is a duty to do follow-up testing or referrals to ensure that an abnormality is, in fact, benign, Wirzba said.

“This is not about not wanting people to know that they have a disease,” he said. “This is about addressing a significant backlog in testing, [which] is really important, but potentially replacing that with further backlogs when you’re seeing your physicians or subsequent testing in the public system.

“That’s the wrong way to go if we’re trying to safeguard the health-care system.”

“We really are very concerned and would advise patients to not go on Google and/or TikTok and decide that you need a full body scan because an influencer thinks that’s the right thing to do,” he added.

There’s also concern about what people do with the information once the testing has been done.

A new survey by the Canadian Medical Association finds that 97 per cent of doctors reported having to intervene to prevent harm or address consequences after a patient followed false or misleading health information obtained online, including advice from artificial intelligence platforms such as ChatGPT.

“What that number actually tells us is that misinformation has become part of routine clinical practice,” Ma’n Zawaiti, associate professor at McGill University, said.

“Doctors aren’t just diagnosing and treating — they’re now spending time correcting beliefs that patients arrive with.”

Zawaiti recently released a study that found AI-powered apps offering medical diagnoses are often limited by biased data and a lack of regulation, leading to inaccurate and unsafe health advice.

He calls the bias issue the “garbage in, garbage out” problem.

“These technologies usually reflect the data that it was trained on,” Zawaiti said. “If we’re talking about data that AI uses, well, it’s usually biased or incomplete.”

“One of the risks, possibly, of people receiving results back is having to do something with those results,” he said.

“If they rely on AI to help them, well, there’s a lot of risks that could happen.”

“We have a system that produces confident, authoritative answers that are usually either partially wrong or oversimplified,” he added. “It’s way more persuasive than a random blog post that you would get as a result if you’re using Google.”

Zawaiti said AI has been known to fabricate studies, recommendations and even scientific links in something that’s called “hallucinations.”

AI isn’t inherently “bad” when it comes to health information if coupled with conversations with your medical team, Zawaiti said, adding it can help you craft important questions that you may otherwise miss and allow you to be more informed about your own health — but not all of the information on AI sites is accurate.

“At the end of the day, the patient isn’t talking to a doctor anymore. It’s conversing with an AI tool.”

When asked about the risks associated with patients using AI, the Primary and Preventative Health Services Ministry said in a statement that patient safety and high-quality care are the top priorities for Alberta’s health system.

“While misinformation in health care is nothing new, we agree that this is a real and growing challenge across Canada and it can have serious consequences for patients,” it reads.

“We strongly recommend that people go to trusted health advice and information. We have record numbers of health care providers available to provide support, and free health advice is available anytime through 811. Albertans should feel confident that the care they receive is grounded in evidence, professional standards, and clinical judgment.”

There’s no timeline on when the details of the bill will be released.

When asked about the concerns raised by the AMA, the ministry said, “Everything remains speculative until the regulations are developed and introduced.”

— With files from The Canadian Press