Will Hospital Patient Visits Return to Normal in 2021?

Hospitals still have some time before they recover from historic patient visit reductions during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, according to a new analysis.

Hospital patient visits are unlikely to return to pre-pandemic volumes in 2021 and are likely to stay at lower levels throughout the new year, the analysis released earlier this week by TransUnion Healthcare revealed.

Patient visits to the hospital have stagnated below pre-pandemic levels in the last 25 weeks of 2020, showed the analysis, which uses average weekly hospital patient visit volumes from the first eight full weeks of 2020 as the pre-pandemic baseline.

This new low is likely to be the new volume baseline for hospitals in 2021.

“The challenges of COVID-19 in 2020 were widespread and hard felt within the healthcare industry, and these impacts are expected to persist well into 2021, particularly from a financial and operational standpoint,” David Wojczynski, president of TransUnion Healthcare, said in a press release. 

The analysis of data from over 500 hospitals in the US found that emergency department visits were down by 30 percent compared to pre-pandemic volumes during the week of December 13, 2020.

Inpatient volumes were also down, falling by 8 percent, while outpatient volumes actually increased to 1 percent by the end of the period.

The recent trend is in line with the levelling out of hospital patient visit volumes experienced in June 2020, which researchers put at -23 percent for emergency department visits, -9 percent for inpatient visits, and -1 percent for outpatient visits compared to the same period in 2019.

Researchers expect outpatient visits to continue to make a comeback as hospitals get into the new year with a new baseline of 5 percent over volumes observed from June 30 to Dec. 12, 2019.

However, the new baseline for emergency department visits will remain at about -22 percent compared to the same period the previous year. Meanwhile, researchers projected a -7 percent new baseline for inpatient visits.

The new baselines are quite different from what hospitals were seeing prior the COVID-19 pandemic when emergency department visits and outpatient were up by 2 percent and 6 percent, respectively, from Jan. 5 through Feb. 29, 2020, versus the same period the previous year.

Before the pandemic, inpatient visits were only down by 3 percent compared to the same period the previous year.

“As the country continues to struggle with mitigating the spread of COVID-19, we’ll likely see continued volatility in hospital patient visit volumes over the next 12 months,” said Jonathan Wiik, principal of healthcare strategy at TransUnion Healthcare.

“The management of vaccination distribution at scale will have positive impacts on hospital patient visits in 2021, though long-term recovery won’t occur for some time. Healthcare organizations will need to remain agile and innovative in their patient engagement, care delivery and operational strategies amid the uncertainty ahead,” Wiik stated.

The number of COVID-19 cases, potential to defer elective procedures, vaccine roll-out, and the regulatory landscape are all some of the factors that will impact hospital patient visit volumes in 2021, the analysis states.

But given the complexity of the factors in conjunction with the slow distribution of vaccines, overall patient visits are likely to remain below those pre-pandemic volumes throughout 2021, researchers predict.

More specifically, they predict that emergency department visit volumes “will remain laggard” and stay around the new baseline through the second quarter of 2021 because of the ongoing pandemic. Only when patients feel more comfortable going to the emergency department for care can hospitals expect emergency department visits to tick back up, researchers stated.

Inpatient volumes will also remain at a deficient, they project, around the new baseline or even below pre-pandemic levels.

On the outpatient side, hospitals should expect surges and dips depending on potential waves of positive COVID-19 cases in their communities, the researchers add. Outpatient volumes are likely to become more stable, though, in the first quarter of 2021 and level off around pre-pandemic volumes by the end of the year.