Study: Physicians’ Use of Telemedicine Still the Exception, not the Rule

In 2016, 15 percent of physicians worked in practices that used telemedicine for patient interactions, such as diagnosing or treating patients, following up with patients, or managing patients with chronic conditions, according to an AMA (American Medical Association) study on telemedicine.

The research, published in the December issue of Health Affairs, which covers telemedicine trends in an array of different ways, gauges the emergence of telemedicine and its integration into healthcare delivery.

Regarding the overall use of telemedicine, the findings showed that 15 percent of physicians worked in practices that used telemedicine for patient interactions, such as diagnosing or treating patients, following up with patients, or managing patients with chronic conditions. Meanwhile, 11 percent of physicians worked in practices that used telemedicine for interactions with healthcare professionals, such as having a specialty consultation, or getting a second opinion.

When it comes to telemedicine use by specialty, radiologists (40 percent), psychiatrists (29 percent), and cardiologists (24 percent) had the highest use of telemedicine for patient interactions. In other specialties, the use of telemedicine for patient interactions ranged from 6 percent to 23 percent, according to the research.

Emergency medicine physicians (39 percent), pathologists (30 percent), and radiologists (26 percent) had the highest use of telemedicine for interactions with healthcare professionals. In other specialties, the use of telemedicine for interactions with healthcare professionals ranged from 3 percent to 15 percent.

What’s more, videoconferencing was the telemedicine modality with the most widespread use, as it was used in the practices of 13 percent of physicians. Use of videoconferencing was most common among emergency medicine physicians, psychiatrists and pathologists. Remote patient monitoring (RPM) was used in the practices of 7 percent of physicians.

Breaking it down further by practice size, physicians in smaller medical practices and physician-owned medical practices had a lower rate of telemedicine use than physicians in larger medical practices and ones that were not physician-owned. The findings suggest the financial burden of implementing telemedicine may be a continuing barrier, especially for that segment of practices, researchers said.

The researchers concluded, “Our work suggests that despite regulatory and legislative changes designed to encourage the use of telemedicine, the financial burden of implementing it may be a continuing barrier, especially for small practices. Even after we controlled for specialty differences, we found that physicians in larger practices and ones that were not physician owned were more likely to report that their practices used telemedicine for interactions with both patients and healthcare professionals.”