Telehealth use exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic, expanding to a host of services from mental health to primary care, urgent care, and other areas. But a study of the Medicare fee-for-service population revealed that telehealth did not increase outpatient office visit utilization, but served as a substitute for in-person visits (see The Volume Of Outpatient Office Visits Did Not Increase For Specialties That Were More Likely To Adopt Telehealth).

The researchers studied use in low (e.g., ophthalmology, sports medicine, orthopedic surgery), medium (e.g., primary care specialties), and high (e.g., behavioral health specialties) telehealth use groups before and after the pandemic. Post-pandemic, telehealth comprised 5.3%, 9.1%, and 43.8% of outpatient office visits for the low-, medium-, and high-use…