I'm not a PCP, but some of this self-service healthcare is very concerning from a public health perspective. One of the biggest problems in American healthcare is overtesting, overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Quick and convenient access is obviously very good for some patients, but there's a significant risk of harm if patients are given easy access to treatments that may be ineffective, unnecessary or actively harmful to them, based on commercial imperatives rather than medical need. The most tragic example is the proliferation of pill mills, which were one of the fundamental drivers of the opioid crisis.

I'm obviously opening myself to accusations of paternalism, but unnecessary healthcare causes real harms on a drastic scale. By some estimates, as much as a third of healthcare spending in the US is on treatments that offer no medical benefit; all of those unnecessary treatments carry some level of risk. The consequences of inappropriately prescribing ADHD medication might seem trivial if you once took a few ritalin or adderall to get through your exams and suffered no serious adverse consequences, but these drugs can cause devastating harm in patients at risk of mania - bipolar disorder and cyclothymia can look a lot like ADHD if you ask leading questions and don't take a thorough history.

The US healthcare system is obviously broken, but the proliferation of self-service healthcare offers at least as many risks as potential benefits.

https://www.choosingwisely.org/