Telehealth doesn’t lead to ‘runaway utilization’: Michigan Medicine study

Increased telehealth use since the pandemic has not been associated with a rise in overall healthcare utilization, according to a study at Ann Arbor-based Michigan Medicine.

The researchers analyzed 538.8 million Medicare fee-for-service outpatient office visits from January 2019 to June 2024, finding that the total number of visits stabilized or even declined slightly among patients with higher telehealth use, per the December study in Health Affairs Scholar. CMS telehealth flexibilities are set to expire Jan. 30, which would leave Medicare beneficiaries unable to access virtual care.

“One of the things that is paralyzing the policy debate is uncertainty and concern about whether covering telehealth in parity with in-person care would be associated with runaway utilization. But we don’t see that here,” said study lead author James Lee, MD, a national clinician scholar at University of Michigan’s Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation and a clinical instructor at its medical school, in a Jan. 15 news release.

While the study was limited to outpatient office visits and Medicare fee for service, the researchers noted that the findings aligned with other studies that also show that the rise in telehealth doesn’t appear to have changed overall healthcare use.

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