One in three adults used telehealth during the first six months of the pandemic, but unmet needs for care persisted
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Author(s):
- Barrie Smith, Laura, author Blavin, Fredric, author
- Contributor(s):
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, issuing body. Urban Institute, issuing body.
- Publication:
- [Washington, DC] : Urban Institute, January 2021
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Healthcare Disparities Telemedicine COVID-19 United States
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- During the pandemic, Medicare and other payers have made changes to payment and regulatory policies that incentivize both patients and providers to use telehealth, thereby increasing its use. Many insurers waived out-of-pocket costs for telehealth visits, and Medicare mandated payment for audio-only telephone visits and expanded telehealth visits to nonrural residents (Lee, Karsten, and Roberts 2020; Mehrotra, Wang, and Snyder 2020). Additionally, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services permitted telehealth services to originate from a patient’s home rather than a medical facility. Though telehealth use has increased dramatically during the pandemic, continued reliance on it could exacerbate health care inequities (Mehrotra, Wang, and Snyder 2020). The resources and technology required for telehealth may be less accessible for people with low incomes or living in rural areas. For example, community health centers face disproportionate barriers to telehealth implementation because they often lack reimbursement, equipment, and training. In this brief, we provide nationally representative estimates of telehealth use among nonelderly adults six months into the pandemic, as of September 2020. We include both phone and video visits in our definition of telehealth. We use data from the second wave of the Urban Institute’s Coronavirus Tracking Survey, fielded September 11 through 28, 2020. The survey contained questions about telehealth use, satisfaction with telehealth use, wanting telehealth but not getting it, not seeing a provider because telehealth was the only option, and reasons for not using telehealth. We analyze survey responses overall and by health and demographic characteristics.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-DC license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (10 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 9918266198406676 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/9918266198406676