Telehealth Earned a Place in Standard Healthcare Delivery Approaches

Following an analysis of demographic, geographic, and clinical trends, a study from the Chartis Group found that telehealth grew in popularity between 2020 and 2022, ultimately gaining the reputation of being considered a lasting option for healthcare delivery approaches.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth use increased sharply. Although this heavy uptake had initial intentions of being temporary, many patients and providers are currently sustaining engagement regularly.

New research found conclusions related to this when comparing statistics of 2020 and 2022. In the analysis, conducted by Chartis and Kythera Labs, researchers reviewed millions of claims from between 2020 and 2022. With this data, they focused their efforts on reviewing demographic trends, which mainly focused on age and language preferences, geographic trends, which reviewed individual state statistics, and clinical trends, which reviewed types of visits.

As a leading healthcare advisory services firm, The Chartis Group mainly serves healthcare providers, payers, service organizations, and investors by supplying strategy, performance transformation, and technology.

In this study, the most notable finding suggests that telehealth now accounts for 10 percent of all outpatient visits, significantly higher than the 1 percent before the pandemic.

"Telehealth usage stabilizing around 10% indicates that providers have found real value in the modality and are actively choosing to utilize it more than before the pandemic. In the future, we expect providers to uncover additional use cases in how they deliver care virtually and impact in how that virtual care is experienced," said Chartis Principal Bret Anderson, in a press release. "Our analysis of more than 400 million claims over more than two years is intended to equip provider organizations with useful benchmarks for adoption and better inform their ongoing planning efforts."

Researchers found that younger adults (18–44) are the largest telehealth users, making up 15 percent of total outpatient visits. Older adults (65 and older), on the other hand, use telehealth the least and makeup 5 percent of total outpatient visits.

Demographic statistics also indicated that regions with low percentages of English-only speakers have the highest relative telehealth utilization rates, making up 13 percent of all outpatient visits.

Based on these findings, researchers concluded that the current state of telehealth does not appeal to older patients and that providers should direct more attention to accommodating patients with diverse language backgrounds.

Based on statistics from 2022, researchers found that the highest telehealth adoption states were Hawaii, California, and Washington DC, with rates of 22 percent, 20 percent, and 19 percent, respectively.

The states with the lowest telehealth adoption rates were Alabama, Alaska, Missouri, Montana, and Tennessee, with rates of 6 percent, along with Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota, with rates of 5 percent, and Iowa at 4 percent.

Researchers also noted that 21 states currently have payment parity, which is a stat that seemingly correlates with telehealth use. In 2022, the average telehealth use rate in states with payment parity was 11 percent, which is higher than the 9 percent among states without it.

Regarding clinical activity, behavioral health is the most dominant specialty, with 57 percent of all related outpatient visits occurring through telehealth. This is followed by primary care at 10.1 percent and medical specialties at 5.8 percent, which are specialties that are continuing consistent telehealth use.

Furthermore, researchers anticipate continued and increased telehealth use after patients continue to gain familiarity with it. Also, due to the frequent spike in COVID-19 cases that often occurs in the winter, researchers recommend that providers plan accordingly.