Telehealth Establishes Permanent Role in U.S. Healthcare Delivery According to New Chartis Research

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Nov 08, 2022, 09:00 ET

Sustained telehealth adoption cements it as a prominent and lasting method of care delivery across various geographies, patient demographics, and clinical service areas.

CHICAGO, Nov. 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Telehealth now accounts for 10% of all outpatient visits, compared to 1% prior to the pandemic, demonstrating that it's a permanent and important fixture in U.S. healthcare delivery, according to analysis by Chartis and Kythera Labs of millions of claims between 2020 and 2022.

Telehealth adoption trends from 2020, 2021, and 2022.

"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. "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."

Key areas of telehealth adoption emerging trends include:

Demographic Trends: Younger adults (18–44) are the most frequent utilizers of telehealth, accounting for 15% of total outpatient visits. Older adults (65+) are the least frequent users, accounting for just 5% of total outpatient visits. This suggests that the current telehealth user experience does not meet patient needs for the 65+ population.

There's also an inverse relationship between the level of linguistically diverse households within a geographic region and telehealth adoption. Geographic regions with the lowest percentages of English-only speakers have the highest relative telehealth utilization rates (13% of all outpatient visits). Consequently, providers should be mindful to accommodate patients with diverse language backgrounds and make telehealth visits accessible to those populations.

Geographic Trends: There are pockets of sustained adoptions on both coasts and through parts of the Midwest, which may be partially influenced by state-level regulations making telehealth adoption more favorable in those areas. The highest and lowest adoption states in 2022 are:

Highest:

Hawaii: 22%
California: 20%
Washington, DC: 19%

Lowest:

Alabama, Alaska, Missouri, Montana, Tennessee: 6%
Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota: 5%
Iowa: 4%

From a policy perspective, 21 states currently have payment parity, and there appears to be a correlation between payment and telehealth utilization. The average 2022 utilization rate for states with payment parity is 11%, compared with 9% for states without it. Most states with high adoption tend to have a payment parity policy to help drive utilization.

Clinical Trends: Behavioral health remains the leading specialty in telehealth adoption, with 57% of all outpatient visits delivered via telehealth with no signs of drop-off. Primary care (10.1%) and medical specialties (5.8%) are consistently integrating telehealth into their care models and seeing sustained usage of telehealth as well.

Over the coming years, baseline adoption rates are likely to be driven higher as providers continue to experiment with additional use cases and patients gain increased comfort and familiarity with telehealth utilization.

With winter coming, when telehealth volumes rise as COVID-19 cases tend to spike, it is imperative for providers that want to consistently meet the needs and preferences of their patients to plan accordingly with appropriate staffing and care models that account for predictable spikes in demand.

To learn more, read the full report, explore the interactive adoption tracker, and review our analysis methodology.

About The Chartis Group The Chartis Group^® (Chartis) is a leading healthcare advisory services firm serving healthcare providers, payers, service organizations, and investors. Chartis brings an unparalleled breadth and depth of expertise in strategy, performance transformation, digital and technology, clinical quality and patient safety, workforce, and strategic communications. Learn how Chartis is helping to build a healthier world at www.chartis.com.

SOURCE The Chartis Group