Health Affairs: Telemedicine’s Impact on Use, Spending, And Quality To inform the ongoing debate about whether to continue payment for telemedicine visits, researchers from Harvard University, and RAND Corporation conducted a study on telemedicine use across health systems with utilization, spending, and quality. In 2021–22, relative to those in the lowest quartile, Medicare patients of health systems in the highest quartile had an increase of 0.21 total outpatient visits (telemedicine and in-person) per patient per year (2.2 percent relative increase), a decrease of 14.4 annual non-COVID-19 emergency department visits per 1,000 patients per year (2.7 percent relative decrease), a $248 increase [...]

FAIR Health: Mental Health Conditions Account for 66 Percent of Telehealth Claim Lines Nationally in January 2024 Telehealth accounted for 4.8 percent of all medical claim lines nationally. Telehealth utilization varied by region, from a high of 6.3 percent of all medical claim lines in the West to a low of 3.6 percent in the South. In between were the Northeast (5.9 percent) and the Midwest (4.1 percent). The top telehealth diagnostic category nationally and in every region was mental health conditions. It accounted for 66.3 percent of telehealth claim lines nationally, and from 56.0 percent (South) to 75.3 [...]

Government Accountability Office (GAO): Telehealth Usage by the Coast Guard GAO released a report on telehealth usage by the Coast Guard. The report describes how the Coast Guard uses telehealth to provide medical care to its active-duty personnel, as well as describes telehealth benefits and challenges identified by Coast Guard officials and documents.