Telehealth use drops as more people return to the doctor's office
There is one exception: the percentage of telehealth claim lines associated with mental health conditions continues to rise.
The popularity of telehealth appears to be waning as the pandemic winds down. Usage in April declined nationally for the third straight month, according to FAIR Health’s Monthly Telehealth Regional Tracker.
Telehealth claim lines (individual services or procedures listed on an insurance claim) declined 12.5% nationally as a percentage of medical claim lines, decreasing from 5.6% of claim lines in March 2021 to 4.9% in April. This was a greater decrease than the drop of 5.1% in March but not as great as the decrease of 15.7% in February.
Related: As telehealth surges, rural areas being left behind
Telehealth usage declined in April in all four U.S. census regions, with the greatest decline in the South, where the decrease was 12.2%. The data represent the privately insured population, excluding Medicare and Medicaid.
The decline in telehealth use appears to be driven largely by a transition of non-mental health services from telehealth, where they had shifted during the COVID-19 pandemic, to in-person settings. The percentage of telehealth claim lines associated with mental health conditions, the leading telehealth diagnosis, continued to rise nationally and in every region.
Nationally, for example, mental health conditions increased from 57% of telehealth claim lines in March 2021 to 58.6% in April. Likewise in April, psychotherapeutic and psychiatric codes increased nationally as a percentage of telehealth procedure codes, while evaluation and management codes decreased. Within the category of mental health conditions, there were no changes in the rankings of top mental health diagnoses nationally or regionally.
In April, acute respiratory diseases and infections increased as a percentage of telehealth claim lines nationally and in the Midwest and South. As the COVID-19 pandemic eases, this suggests a return to non-COVID respiratory conditions, such as colds and bronchitis. Also in April, general signs and symptoms joined the top five telehealth diagnoses in the West, again suggesting a return to more ordinary, non-COVID conditions such as colds and stomach viruses.
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