Racial Gap in Completed Doctor Visits Disappeared in 2020 as Telemedicine Adopted

Penn Medicine News: Racial Gap in Completed Doctor Visits Disappeared in 2020 as Telemedicine Adopted

A Penn Medicine study found that as COVID-19 necessitated the wider adoption of telemedicine, the rate of completed primary care visits for Black patients rose to the same level of non-Black patients. The study showed that completed primary care visits rose from approximately 60 percent among Black patients before the arrival of COVID-19 to over 80 percent in 2020. To compare, non-Black patients visit completion rate was in the 70 percent range prior to COVID-19, then was also over 80 percent in 2020. The equity gap of at least 10 percent disappeared at Penn Medicine practices after the pandemic arrived, when telemedicine was widely adopted. Telemedicine allowed patients to seek non-urgent primary care despite hesitancy for in-person visits pre-vaccine.