HHS’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) has issued a new report, “Medicare Beneficiaries’ Use of Telehealth in 2020: Trends by Beneficiary Characteristics and Location.” The ASPE report examines changes in Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) Part B visits in 2019 and 2020, and the use of telehealth in 2020 during the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) by beneficiary characteristics, provider specialty and location.

The report found:

• The share of Medicare visits conducted through telehealth in 2020 increased 63-fold, from approximately 840,000 in 2019 to 52.7 million.
• Total utilization of all Medicare FFS clinician visits declined about 11% in 2020 compared to levels in 2019.
• Most beneficiaries (92%) received telehealth visits from their homes, which was not permissible prior to the pandemic.
• Visits to behavioral health specialists showed the largest increase in telehealth in 2020.
• Disparities in telehealth were found by race/ethnicity, rural location, and geographic region. Blacks and rural beneficiaries had lower use of telehealth compared with White and urban beneficiaries, respectively.
• States with the highest use of telehealth in 2020 included Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Connecticut. States with the lowest use of telehealth included Tennessee, Nebraska, Kansas, North Dakota and Wyoming.

CMS has also released a new snapshot showing the number of people with Medicare who utilized telemedicine services between March 1, 2020 and February 28, 2021. The data from the snapshot comes from Medicare FFS claims data, Medicare Advantage (MA) encounter data, and Medicare enrollment information.

You can read the ASPE report here, and view the CMS snapshot here.