More Than 1 in 4 Medicare Beneficiaries Had a Telehealth Visit Between the Summer and Fall of 2020

With the coronavirus pandemic keeping people at home last year, just over one in four Medicare beneficiaries had a telemedicine visit to a doctor or other healthcare professional between summer and fall 2020, a new KFF analysis found.

While traditional Medicare limited the pandemic to beneficiaries living in rural areas, it saw a rapid expansion of telehealth services during the pandemic. New options include the ability to provide some services via audio phone only. Medicare Advantage plans have been able to offer additional telemedicine benefits not covered by traditional Medicare outside of the public health emergency, and virtually all of them do. However, telehealth coverage under traditional Medicare would revert to more limited availability if the public health emergency ended without changing existing regulations.

The new analysis provides an overview of the pandemic-induced changes in Medicare telemedicine coverage, examines the use of telemedicine services by community beneficiaries, and discusses issues related to extending telemedicine coverage under traditional Medicare beyond the emergency Public health.

The main results include:

• Nearly two-thirds (64% or 33.6 million) of Medicare beneficiaries with a common source of care say their provider currently offers telemedicine appointments, up from 18% who said their provider offered telemedicine prior to the pandemic. However, nearly a quarter (23%) of Medicare beneficiaries do not know if their provider offers telemedicine appointments, and this proportion is higher for rural beneficiaries (30%).

• Among Medicare beneficiaries who said their provider offered telemedicine, some groups of beneficiaries were more likely than others to report having a telemedicine visit to a doctor or other healthcare professional, including Medicare beneficiaries under 65 with long-term disabilities, blacks and Spanish beneficiaries, Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid, and beneficiaries with multiple chronic conditions. At the same time, there was no difference in reported telemedicine usage rates between beneficiaries of traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage.

• A majority (56%) of Medicare beneficiaries who had a telemedicine visit reported accessing care via phone only, while a smaller proportion reported a telemedicine visit via video (28%) or both video and phone ( 16%).

A number of telemedicine bills were introduced at the 117th Congress, including proposals to permanently expand telemedicine extensions during the public health emergency, extend Medicare coverage for mental health services, and expand the scope of providers, those eligible for payment for telemedicine services are covered by Medicare. Other bills aim to assess the impact of enhanced telehealth services on the quality of patient care and program spending.

Further data and analyzes on telemedicine and the pandemic can be found at kff.org.