Telemedicine use is booming (kind of)

From 2014 to 2018, usage of non-hospital-based provider-to-patient telemedicine grew more rapidly in urban than rural areas. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Telemedicine — particularly outside of the hospital setting — is exploding, according to FAIR Health’s white paper, “A Multilayered Analysis of Telehealth – How This Emerging Venue of Care Is Affecting the Healthcare Landscape.”

FAIR Health analyzed more than 29 billion private health care claim records in its repository and found that non-hospital-based provider-to-patient telemedicine from 2014 to 2018 grew 1,393 percent (from 0.007 percent to 0.104 percent of all medical claim lines) vastly more so than the other types of telemedicine: follow-up calls after patients are discharged from inpatient hospital stays; physician calls made patients visiting hospital emergency departments or admitted as inpatients; and calls between health care professionals for consultation purposes.