Study Finds Nearly Half of All Telehealth Visits for Non-Mental Health Conditions

A new study published in Annals of Internal Medicine found that nearly half of telehealth visits are for non-mental health conditions.

The researchers “examined healthcare visit data from a nationally representative sample of nearly 15,000 Medicare users during 2021 to 2023 to learn how telehealth is being used nationwide. Nearly half of mental health appointments were performed remotely, amounting to 31 million annual visits. But there were almost as many telehealth appointments for non-mental health conditions: 29 million annually.”

Most of those non-mental health condition-related visits were for “common health conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure, for which the sheer number of medical visits outweighs the relatively small fraction of these visits that are performed virtually.” This suggests “people who are most medically vulnerable are more likely to use telehealth.”

Telehealth users are also “more likely to report limitations in activities of daily living, like bathing and getting dressed, and are more likely to report worse health overall.” More data on who uses telehealth and why can “help guide informed decisions about how health systems provide care, which may help lead to more certainty for patients about how their care will be delivered and covered on an ongoing basis.”