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Telehealth utilization in primary care specialties declined by over 30% in 2021 and 2022 following a spike in 2020, according to data from FAIR Health. Although temporary suspensions of practice agreements and supervision requirements allowed non-physician providers to show the largest increases, family and internal medicine physicians had smaller increases in patients treated via telehealth. While telehealth usage continued to decrease from 2021 to 2022, patients have expressed satisfaction with receiving virtual primary care due to its convenience and accessibility.
Following a significant increase in telehealth utilization in 2020, data released by FAIR Health shows that usage dropped by over 30 percent across various primary care specialties in 2021 and 2022. The report analyzed primary care trends in the US using information from its database of private healthcare claims and other sources, such as US census data and National Plan and Provider Enumeration
System (NPPES) data. The report also includes an analysis of telehealth utilization trends in primary care, conducted using the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) place of service codes for telehealth, telehealth-only CPT codes, or telehealth modifiers.
In 2019, telehealth use was still in its infancy, with only a small percentage of patients being treated via telehealth across primary care specialties. However, following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, telehealth utilization skyrocketed across various primary care specialties, with physician assistants representing the most significant increase. Telehealth usage rose by almost 20,000 percent in patients treated via telehealth, followed by nurse practitioners with an increase of nearly 9,000 percent, and pediatricians with an increase of over 6,000 percent. The temporary suspension of practice agreements and supervision requirements allowed many nurse practitioners and physician assistants to engage in full practice, accounting for nonphysician providers showing the largest increases.
Family medicine and internal medicine physicians were associated with smaller increases in patients treated via telehealth, with percentage changes of about 1,100 percent and 2,100 percent, respectively. The rise of telehealth utilization was attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to the adoption of remote care models as patients and healthcare providers tried to minimize contact and exposure. However, in the two years following 2020, telehealth utilization across primary care specialties declined considerably.
Between 2020 and 2021, the percentage of patients seen via telehealth dropped by 36 percent among physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and internal medicine physicians. That figure declined by 35 percent among pediatricians and 32 percent among family medicine physicians. Telehealth utilization further decreased across primary care specialties from 2021 to 2022, though the declines were smaller for most. The percentage of patients treated via telehealth decreased by 9 percent for nurse practitioners and internal medicine physicians, while it dropped by 7 percent for family medicine physicians and 4 percent for physician assistants. In contrast, the percentage of patients seen via telehealth decreased by another 35 percent among pediatricians from 2021 to 2022.
Potential reasons for the continued decline in pediatric telehealth include barriers related to broadband connectivity, digital literacy, device access, and interpretation services. Additionally, families may prefer in-person care for children, especially for initial visits. Despite the rise and fall of telehealth utilization across primary care, patients have expressed satisfaction with receiving these services virtually. Survey results released by Elevance Health showed that 79 percent of more than 5,000 US adults believe virtual primary care allowed them to take charge of their health, and 94 percent were satisfied with their experience. Convenience and accessibility were the top factors Americans cited when asked what appealed to them about virtual primary care.
Recent research also indicates that most primary care-related telehealth visits did not require an in-person follow-up visit. The study conducted by Epic Research involved a review of 18.6 million telehealth visits for primary care between March 1, 2020, and October 15, 2022. The data was gathered from Cosmos, a HIPAA-defined limited dataset of more than 180 million patients from 190 healthcare organizations using the Epic EHR. Researchers found that 61 percent of primary care tele.
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