For some groups, including Medicare-Medicaid enrollees and those with multiple chronic conditions, higher rates of telehealth use may be related to higher use of health care overall. Reported telehealth use among beneficiaries who said their provider offers telehealth was higher among Medicare beneficiaries under the age of 65 who qualify for Medicare due to a long-term disability (53%), beneficiaries enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid (55%), Black (52%) and Hispanic (52%) beneficiaries, and those with 6 or more chronic conditions (56%).This translates to just over 1 in 4 (27% or 15 million) of all community-dwelling beneficiaries in both traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage using telehealth during this time period ( Figure 1).įigure 1: More Than 1 in 4 Medicare Beneficiaries Had a Telehealth Visit Between the Summer and Fall of 2020
#Audio only telehealth visits professional
Among the 33.6 million Medicare beneficiaries with a usual source of care who reported that their provider currently offers telehealth appointments, nearly half (45%) said they had a telehealth visit with a doctor or other health professional between the summer (July) and fall of 2020.But nearly a quarter of Medicare beneficiaries (23%) say they don’t know if their provider offers telehealth appointments, and this percentage is larger among beneficiaries who live in rural areas (30%). Among the vast majority of Medicare beneficiaries with a usual source of care (95%), such as a doctor or other health professional, or a clinic, nearly two-thirds (64% or 33.6 million) say that their provider currently offers telehealth appointments, up from 18% who said their provider offered telehealth before the pandemic.(See Data and Methods for details.) Key Findings All differences reported in the text are statistically significant, unless otherwise noted. Our analysis of beneficiaries’ use of telehealth services is based on survey data of Medicare beneficiaries living in the community from the CMS Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS) Fall 2020 COVID-19 Supplement. It also presents new analysis of Medicare beneficiaries’ utilization of telehealth between the summer and fall of 2020, and discusses issues and questions related to extending telehealth coverage under traditional Medicare beyond the public health emergency. In light of the rapid, but time-limited, expansion of telehealth coverage under traditional Medicare, this brief provides an overview of the changes made during the COVID-19 pandemic to Medicare’s coverage of telehealth. When the public health emergency ends, however, Medicare’s coverage of telehealth services will revert back to the more limited availability that existed before the pandemic, unless policymakers take action to extend the expanded coverage. Soon after the federal government declared a public health emergency due to COVID-19 in early 2020, Congress and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) expanded traditional Medicare’s coverage of telehealth services in order to make it easier for beneficiaries to get medical care and minimize their exposure to coronavirus in health care settings. Before the pandemic, coverage of telehealth services under traditional Medicare was limited to beneficiaries living in rural areas only, with restrictions on where beneficiaries could receive these services and which providers could be paid to deliver them. Telehealth, the provision of health care services to patients from providers who are not at the same location, has experienced a rapid escalation in use during the COVID-19 pandemic, among both privately-insured patients and Medicare beneficiaries.
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