Research
Telehealth claims analysis: Is telehealth really here to stay?
What utilization over the past two years tells us about the future
February 11, 2022
Overview
The explosion of telehealth during 2020’s Covid-19 lockdown transformed health care delivery and provided us with long-awaited data points. But telehealth’s rapid growth left us with unanswered questions about the impact and durability of telehealth.
We investigated volumes before, during, and following the Covid-19 lockdown to help us answer these questions:
- How will future telehealth volumes compare to pre-Covid norms?
- Will a rise in telehealth utilization lead to an increase in overall utilization and total spending?
- How does telehealth utilization differ across service lines? How will reimbursement impact future utilization?
- How can future analyses help us answer outstanding questions?
Our main takeaway: Telehealth is here to stay as a meaningful proportion of physician visits—especially for service lines that lend themselves to virtual modalities, like psychiatry.
Methodology