While 2016 saw an increase of 46 percent in outpatient days with telemedicine visits than the year prior, telemedicine still represents less than one percent of total outpatient visits. (Photo: Shutterstock)
Telemedicine has been touted as a breakthrough in health care access, giving patients who, for one reason or another, can't see a doctor in person, access via video conferencing or remote monitoring. And while a new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows more employers are paying for such services, another report suggest that enrollment has been relatively low.
The 2018 Employer Health Benefit Survey finds that employers covering telemedicine has jumped from 27 percent in 2015 to 74 percent in 2018. Large employers, those with 5,000 workers or more, are most likely to cover telemedicine (83 percent) while smaller firms, those with 50 to 199 workers are least likely (65 percent).
However, among people with at least six months of large employer coverage and at least one outpatient claim, the share of enrollees has remained small. In 2016, 0.41 percent of rural enrollees with at least six months of coverage and at least one outpatient claim used telemedicine, compared to 0.52 percent of urban enrollees (up from 0.23 percent and 0.36 percent, respectively, the year prior).
In total among people with large employer coverage, the study finds there were nearly 429,000 outpatient days that included a telemedicine visit in 2016. While this represents an increase of 46 percent from the 293,000 outpatient days with telemedicine visits the year prior, telemedicine still represents less than one percent of total outpatient visits and does not appear to be significantly replacing traditional in-person physician visits. Among people with at least 6 months of large employer coverage and at least one outpatient claim in 2016, just 0.51 percent of enrollees had a telemedicine outpatient visit, up from 0.35 percent of enrollees in 2015.
The study analyzed a sample of medical claims obtained from the Truven Health Analytics MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters Database, which is a database with claims information provided by large employers.
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