U.S. health care, patients, have a big problem with medical misinformation and disinformation: Physicians Foundation

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Physicians need to do more now to stanch the flow of medical misinformation that threatens patient care, especially in rural America, according to The Physicians Foundation.

A new study examines “The Effect of Misinformation and Disinformation on Physicians’ Ability to Provide Quality Care,” and the effect is negative. Misinformation, which is false or inaccurate, and disinformation, false or inaccurate information presented to mislead someone deliberately, threaten patient safety by hurting the decision-making process and undermining the physician-patient relationship, according to The Physicians Foundation.

A full 86% of physicians feel the incidence of medical misinformation and disinformation has increased compared with five years ago, and half of doctor respondents said it was a “significant increase.” At least 57% of physicians felt the misinformation or disinformation has a significant impact on their ability to deliver quality patient care.

Gary Price, MD, MBA
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“I don't think that's surprising,” Physicians Foundation President Gary Price, MD, MBA, told Medical Economics. “We all know that misinformation has become a bigger issue in all of our lives over the last five years. A lot's happened then. We've had COVID. We've had political use of misinformation and disinformation. We've seen foreign governments attempt to use it to influence our politics. We've seen people exploiting it seemingly just to get more followers on their podcast.”

Medical misinformation and disinformation has been around forever, including as part of every war in history, Price said. But in 2025, social media appears to play a huge role in the spread of inaccuracies, he said.

Low confidence in patients

The situation is worst in rural areas, where 38% of doctors reported encountering “a great deal” of misinformation or disinformation from their patients. That was greater than 21% of suburban physicians and 25% of urban doctors.

Among rural physicians, 57% reported they were “not at all confident” their patients know how to access evidence-based health information online. That was more than 37% of suburban physicians and 41% of doctors in cities. Overall that reached 40% of physicians feeling not at all confident in their patients’ abilities to find accurate health information online.

The Physicians Foundation survey did not identify a cause for the difference among rural, suburban and urban settings, Price said.

High confidence in doctors

While confidence in patients may be low to moderate, doctors have a great deal of confidence in themselves to dispel medical myths: 97% said they were at least somewhat confident in identifying and correcting medical misinformation or disinformation that patients bring to their appointments. Just 10% of doctors said they do not have the necessary tools and support to engage patients who are skeptical about modern medicine or science.

“Interestingly, when we asked physicians if they felt they were equipped and able to deal with it with their patients, 97% said, absolutely, yes, we are,” Price said. “I found that very surprising.

“If you take a look at what's happened with one of the leading indicators of how well we're doing with public health, vaccination rates, over the last five years, we clearly have not been able to cope with that misinformation and disinformation,” he said. “We've let our patients down on that. And it's striking to me that almost everyone thinks that they're able to do a great job.”

Who do you trust?

In recent years, patient surveys about trust in professions have shown a slow erosion in patients’ confidence in doctors. But when patients are asked about their own physicians, they rank their doctors very high in people they trust, Price said. In this survey, physician results may show a different placement in confidence: Low in patients, high in themselves.

“They're supremely confident in their ability to talk with their patients almost to a one,” Price said. “But yet they recognize that for at least half the patients, it's a real issue.

“I think this reflects a disconnect, and it's a call to action for the scientific community, the medical community in particular, but especially for physicians and the organizations that try to help represent them,” he said.

“I think we've fallen behind in understanding how many of our patients are getting their information and what leads them to trust a source,” Price said. “And we can't just deliver them the results of studies anymore. We have to learn to communicate and meet our patients where they're getting their information where they're placing their trust.

“And that's something new for the medical profession,” he added.