Telehealth Visits Level Off, but Could Have a Bright Future

With over a year and a half of the pandemic behind us, lessons are being learned about the technologies that have been transforming the healthcare landscape.  Previous Extract blogs have touched on telehealth, and how it’s had not only rapid expansion during the pandemic, but also that it has no signs of receding back to pre-pandemic usage levels.  The EHR company Epic published findings that telehealth visits jumped from under a hundredth of a percent to nearly 70% of all ambulatory visits in April of 2020.

A recent study conducted by the Center for Connected Medicine indicates that current telehealth usage has been coming back down to earth, topping out at around 20% of medical appointments.  This figure represented more than 80% of respondents in the survey.  Of those that said they’re still doing more telehealth visits (over 30% of visits being virtual in some cases), the expectation is that the number will fall as COVID-19 cases pull back.

While telehealth services have been reduced as a percentage of overall healthcare visits, organizations are still looking to invest in the technology and expand its use in three key areas: urgent care, behavioral health, and chronic care management.

Those evaluating and analyzing telehealth metrics has gone up from 77% to 92% over the past year, including 25% of respondents that are measuring telehealth’s impact on patient outcomes, also an increase from last year.

The top concerns regarding telemedicine were patient access to the technology and uncertainty regarding reimbursement for the service.  Some of the protections in place for telehealth coverage will persist, but less common ways of using telehealth, such as with audio-only or using a consumer platform like Skype probably have a short-lived future as the pandemic starts to wane.

Industry groups have been urging Congress to act sooner rather than later as it’s difficult for organizations to invest in a platform that may not have a clear-cut future.  While the temporary flexibility surrounding telehealth reimbursement was created as a pandemic response, it’s argued that there is a large patient demand for the service, and that it positively impacts patient satisfaction as well.

So while telehealth visits may be declining, it still appears that they’ll be an integral part of healthcare organizations’ plans moving forward, particularly in certain areas.  Both patients and providers are happy with the progress that’s been made, but regulatory certainty will be what truly solidifies the practice moving forward.