Underserved Medicare Beneficiaries More Likely To Use Audio-Only Telehealth Services

Audio-only telehealth utilization has declined among Medicare beneficiaries, but underserved groups remain frequent users of this method of delivering telehealth services. Compared with 72.5% of Medicare beneficiaries who received only in-person care in 2022, those who received at least one audio-only visit were more likely to be dual eligible for Medicaid, have medically complex conditions, be Black or Hispanic, and live in non-rural areas.

Additional details about differences between people using audio telehealth, audiovisual telehealth, and in-person visits are as follows:

Dual eligibles represented 21.5% of those using audio-only visits, 19.3 . . .