Updated Medicare FFS telehealth trends by beneficiary characteristics, visit specialty, and state, 2019-2021
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Series Title(s):
- ASPE research report
- Author(s):
- Samson, Lok Wong, author Couture, Sara J., author Creedon, Tim B., author Jacobus-Kantor, Laura, author Sheingold, Steven, author
- Contributor(s):
- United States. Department of Health and Human Services. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. Office of Health Policy, issuing body.
- Publication:
- Washington, D.C. : Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Office of Health Policy, July 20, 2023
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Medicare -- statistics & numerical data Medicare -- trends State Government Telemedicine -- statistics & numerical data Telemedicine -- trends United States
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- Utilization of telehealth among Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) beneficiaries in 2021 continued to be far above pre-pandemic levels, but lower than at the peak of 2020. Audio-only eligible telehealth visits comprised about one quarter of Medicare telehealth visits in both 2020 and 2021. Telehealth utilization in 2021 remained highest for behavioral health compared to non-behavioral health visits; telehealth made up 35% of visits to behavioral health specialists, down from a peak of 56% in 2020. Among visits to primary care providers for behavioral health conditions, telehealth represented 10% of visits by the end of 2021, down from a high of 37% in 2020. Telehealth use by the end of 2021 comprised 5% of primary care visits and 1% of specialist visits for non-behavioral health conditions. Hispanic beneficiaries as well as beneficiaries dually enrolled in Medicaid and those with disabilities continued to have the highest use of telehealth in 2021, but at lower levels than 2020. In 2021, rural beneficiaries continue to be less likely to use telehealth compared with urban beneficiaries, regardless of whether they resided in a health care professional shortage area or not, or the relative wealth of their community as measured by an index of neighborhood deprivation levels. There was wide variation across states in use of telehealth in Medicare, despite uniform federal flexibilities, from under 2% in Alabama to a high of 6-7% in some states in 2020 and 2021; this may be due to variation in state level public health emergency (PHE) flexibilities for telehealth and state licensure requirements that extended for a longer period in some states (e.g., MA, CA, VT). About 5 to 6% of all telehealth visits in 2020 and 2021 were with providers located in a different state from the beneficiary’s residence. In 2021, this was highest for visits with out-of-state specialists for non-behavioral health conditions (7.5%), and lowest for visits with behavioral health specialists (4.7%). Telehealth visits with an out-of-state primary care provider made up 6.1% of primary care telehealth visits for non-behavioral health conditions and 5.4% of primary care telehealth visits for behavioral health conditions.
- Copyright:
- The National Library of Medicine believes this item to be in the public domain. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (25 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 9918697333106676 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/9918697333106676