Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Feb 25, 2022
Open Peer Review Period: Feb 25, 2022 - Apr 22, 2022
Date Accepted: May 20, 2022
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Outpatient Care Among Users and Nonusers of Direct-to-Patient Telehealth: An Observational Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Expansion of telehealth insurance coverage is hampered by concerns that such coverage may encourage excess utilization and spending
Objective:
To examine whether users of telehealth services rely more on other forms outpatient care than non-users, and to estimate differences in payment rates.
Methods:
We examined claims data from a large national insurer in 2017. We limited our analysis to patients with visits for three common diagnoses (N = 660,546). We calculated the total number of visits per patient, overall and by setting, and adjusted for patient and county-level factors.
Results:
After multivariable adjustment virtual visit users, compared to non-users, had 0.44 fewer visits to primary care, 0.11 fewer visits to EDs, and 0.17 fewer visits to retail and urgent care. All estimates are statistically significant at p <.0001. Average payment rates for virtual visits were lower than all other settings.
Conclusions:
These findings suggest that virtual visits may substitute rather than add to in-person care for some types of care. Our study suggests that virtual visits may offer an efficient and less costly alternative. Clinical Trial: NA
Citation
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