Pharmacy chain pulls back AI phone bot after wrong-dosage calls
Kinney Drugs is scrapping its AI assistant for incoming calls after patients reported incoherent conversations, wrong dosages, and missed refill alerts.
What happened: Kinney Drugs, a Vermont-based pharmacy chain, is stepping back its AI phone assistant, nicknamed Burt after the company's founder, following months of customer complaints. Patients calling in about prescriptions said they got incoherent responses, incorrect dosage information, and in some cases never received notice that a refill was ready. Company president John Marraffa publicly acknowledged the problems, saying the rollout got privacy and security right but failed on the actual patient experience.
Why it matters: This isn't a chatbot fumbling a customer-service script about store hours. It's an automated system relaying medication information, where a wrong dosage or a missed refill alert can have real health consequences, not just annoyance. The case is a reminder that passing privacy and compliance checks, like HIPAA, doesn't automatically mean an AI tool is accurate or safe to use for something as sensitive as prescription instructions.
What went wrong: Burt launched in May to handle both outbound texts about refills and inbound calls from patients asking about their prescriptions. According to Kinney, the assistant is HIPAA-compliant, runs on closed (not open-source) software, and doesn't generate or alter data on its own. But those safeguards addressed data security, not conversational reliability. Customers say the actual calls often didn't make sense or delivered wrong information about what they were taking or when to take it.
The rollout: Kinney is reverting incoming patient calls to its previous touch-tone phone menu, effectively undoing the customer-facing part of the AI rollout. Burt isn't gone entirely: the company will keep using it for outbound messages, like text reminders that a prescription is ready, but only for patients who opt in. That leaves the AI in a narrower, lower-risk role rather than handling live conversations about medication.