The Transition to Telehealth During the First Months of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Evidence from a National Sample of Patients

Published in: Journal of General Internal Medicine (2021). doi: 10.1007/s11606-020-06358-0

Posted on RAND.org on January 08, 2021

by Shira H. Fischer, Lori Uscher-Pines, Elizabeth Roth, Joshua Breslau

As the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted in-person medical care, emergency regulatory changes were implemented to promote use of telehealth, moving this previously peripheral practice to the center of health care delivery in the USA. One study of private health care claims found that telemedicine claims were 4000% higher in March 2020 than in March 2019. Information on use of telehealth by patients can inform post-pandemic policy.

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