Telehealth Claim Lines Increase 3,060 Percent Nationally When Comparing October 2019 to October 2020

Telehealth claim lines increased 3,060 percent nationally from October 2019 to October 2020, rising from 0.18 percent of medical claim lines in October 2019 to 5.61 percent in October 2020, according to new data from FAIR Health’s Monthly Telehealth Regional Tracker. From month to month, coinciding with a surge in COVID-19 cases in October, the telehealth share of medical claim lines rose 10.6 percent nationally, from 5.07 percent in September 2020 to 5.61 percent in October 2020. The data represent the privately insured population, excluding Medicare and Medicaid.

Trends in the four US census regions (Midwest, Northeast, South and West) were similar to those in the nation as a whole. In each region, there were large percent increases in volume of claim lines from October 2019 to October 2020, and smaller increases from September 2020 to October 2020.

Higher telehealth utilization from March to October 2020 in comparison with the same months in 2019 was likely a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In March and April 2020, many states prohibited in-person rendering of elective procedures, making telehealth a viable alternative. Many of these prohibitions expired in May as states began to open up. Despite some decline from month to month over the summer, telehealth usage remained high in comparison to 2019, as the pandemic continued. The rise of telehealth usage in October may have been related to the increase in COVID-19 cases that month, as the pandemic rose to new highs at the time.

Another notable finding of the October Monthly Telehealth Regional Tracker concerns the top five telehealth diagnoses by volume. In both January-October 2019 and September 2020, exposure to communicable diseases was not among the top five telehealth diagnoses nationally or in any region, but in October 2020 it was among the top five telehealth diagnoses nationally and in every region. This too is likely related to the surge in COVID-19 cases in October, as patients contacted providers via telehealth out of concern they had been exposed to COVID-19.

As exposure to communicable diseases joined the top five telehealth diagnoses, different diagnoses fell out of the lists in different regions, such as substance use disorders in the Northeast and hypertension in the South.

For the Monthly Telehealth Regional Tracker, click here.

Source: Fair Health