While virtual care grew 31-fold at nine health systems, total Medicare utilization there rose by just 0.25 visits per beneficiary, the American Telemedicine Association found.
In the non-peer-reviewed study comparing 2019 to 2023 data, 74% of Medicare patients used telehealth to substitute for in-person visits. The U.S. Congressional Budget Office has pegged that number at 30%.
“What makes this analysis meaningful is that it reflects how telehealth is actually embedded in day-to-day care — real workflows and patient encounters, not theoretical models,” said Ethan Booker, MD, chief medical officer for telehealth at Columbia, Md.-based MedStar Health and chair of the ATA’s Clinician Council’s Clinical Frameworks and Evidence subcommittee, in a Nov. 24 release. “Even with millions more virtual visits and the increased access to care, billed encounters per patient have stayed essentially flat.”
The 1.67 million patients studied also spanned Advocate Health (Charlotte, N.C.), Ballad Health (Johnson City, Tenn.), Intermountain Health (Salt Lake City), Johns Hopkins Medicine (Baltimore), OSF HealthCare (Peoria, Ill.), Sanford Health (Sioux Falls, S.D.), UPMC (Pittsburgh), and WVU Medicine (Morgantown, W.Va.), as well as national telemedicine company Access TeleCare.
Six of the health systems provided Medicare fee-for-service data, one contributed Medicare ACO data, another offered all-payer data, and a ninth supplied a rural case study for validation.
Medicare telehealth reimbursement flexibilities, which lapsed during the recent government shutdown, are set to expire Jan. 30.
