The Epic Research study found that 16 out of 24 specialties had higher follow-up rates within 90 days of an initial office visit than a telehealth visit.
This concerned the medical areas:
- mental health
- physical medicine and rehabilitation
- pain medicine
with more than 20% higher follow-up rate after an in-person office appointment than after a telehealth appointment.
For the medical domains:
- ophthalmology
- obstetrics and gynaecology
- podiatry
- ear, nose and throat
- dermatology
- allergy
- paediatric
- internal medicine
had an at least 9% higher in-person follow-up rate after telehealth appointments than office appointments.
In future studies it will be checked as well both the complexity of visits between telehealth and in-person care and the effect that insurance coverage has on telehealth utilization.
Recommendations:
- The government and policymakers should use them to inform future regulatory and funding efforts that affect the adoption of telehealth services.
- For payers, these findings suggest that telehealth can be a sufficient way to provide care, something that should be considered when determining coverage.
- Health systems, meanwhile, should continue offering telehealth as it may be patients’ preferred way of receiving care.
Have a look at the article in MedCityNews and the comments of Jackie Gerhart, chief medical officer of Epic Research.
https://medcitynews.com/2023/07/telehealth-healthcare-virtual-mental-primary-care/
