Telehealth Use Rose 1.8% Nationally in March

Following a slight decline in February, telehealth use increased slightly in March at the national level and in two United States census regions, according to the FAIR Health Monthly Telehealth Regional Tracker.

The FAIR Health Monthly Telehealth Regional Tracker is a service that describes how telehealth usage changes monthly by tracking claim lines, procedure codes, and diagnostic categories. The tracker represents a privately insured population, includes Medicare Advantage, and excludes Medicare Fee-for-Service and Medicaid beneficiaries.

Although the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic is not as high as it once was, telehealth remains widely used. The March release of the FAIR Health Monthly Telehealth Regional Tracker reflected this.

In March, telehealth use increased by 1.8 percent at the national level. It also rose by 2.4 percent in the Midwest and 2.6 percent in the West. In the Northeast and the South, telehealth use stayed the same.

Nationally, telehealth occupied 5.6 percent of claim lines in March, slightly higher than the 5.5 percent reported in February.

The list of top five telehealth diagnoses also changed slightly in March. In the South, urinary tract infections appeared in fifth place, while hypertension went from fifth to third place. Meanwhile, encounter for examination fell off the list in the South after occupying third place in February. 

Contrarily, at the national level, in the Midwest, the Northeast, and the West, the top five telehealth diagnoses remained the same as the month prior.

Regarding telehealth claim lines, mental health conditions rose from 66.7 percent of claim lines nationally in February to 67.4 percent in March. Acute respiratory diseases and infections ranked second at the national level, experiencing a decrease from 3.5 percent to 3.2 percent of telehealth claim lines between February and March.

Changes also took place in asynchronous telehealth activity in March. At the national level and in the West, hypertension held its spot in second place on the list of top five diagnoses via asynchronous telehealth. It also appeared fourth in the South and first in the Midwest, the same as the month prior.

In the Northeast, however, hypertension went from first to second place between February and March, switching places with mental health conditions.

Like the prior month, the use of audio-only telehealth was higher in rural areas compared to urban areas in March. However, in the South, audio-only telehealth occupied 10.5 percent of telehealth claim lines in urban areas, higher than the 5.5 percent it occupied in rural areas.

Although there was a marginal increase in telehealth use in March, prior FAIR Health reports have indicated larger spikes in the past.

In December 2021, national telehealth use increased by 11.4 percent, accounting for 4.9 percent of all medical claim lines. This sharp increase largely correlated with the rise of the Omicron variant of COVID-19. The diagnosis feature of the tracker indicated that COVID-19 rose on the list of the top five most common telehealth-diagnosed conditions.