PMU5 IMPACT of Telehealth Utilization during the COVID-19 Pandemic on Health Care Resource Utilization

Objectives: To assess the healthcare utilization (HCRU) among the patients who received care via telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A retrospective 6-month pre-post analyses was conducted utilizing HealthJump data. Adult patients with incident telehealth visit (index date) between Feb 1st–April 30th, 2020 were identified, using the CMS CPT codes in conjunction with the description of encounters. Patients were required to be continuously enrolled in the baseline and follow-up period and should have zero telehealth visit in the baseline period. Age, gender and diagnosis on the index date were summarized for the sample. During the baseline and follow-up period, proportion of patients having >=1 visits for the following HCRU visits were evaluated and compared using McNemar’s test: (a) Office visits, (b) Inpatient visits, (c) Consultations, (d) Emergency Department visits, (e) Critical Care, (f) Nursing Facility, (g) Home Services, (f) Preventive care, (g) Mental Health (h) Non-face to Face (F2F) services. A subset analyses was conducted among patients with COVID-19 diagnosis. Results: 27,169 patients with a mean(SD) age of 50.15(17.11) and predominantly female (62.4%) were included in study. Hypertension, hyperlipidemia, anxiety disorder, type 2 diabetes mellitus and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder were the top diagnoses associated with the index telehealth visit. Compared to baseline period, patients had a significant increase in outpatient (18 percentage points, p<0.0001) and non-F2F (13 percentage points, p<0.0001) visits and significant decrease in inpatient, consultation, emergency room, nursing facility and preventive visits during the follow-up period. Of the sample, 534 patients had COVID-19 diagnosis with a mean(SD) age of 49.9(16.04) and were predominantly female (61.6%). Similar decrease and increase in HCRU were observed in the subset of COVID-19 patients in our study. Conclusions: During COVID-19 pandemic, patients utilizing telehealth experienced similar shift in the HCRU, especially in outpatient & non-F2F visits, irrespective of the COVID diagnosis.