Study: Telehealth Utilization Remains High Within Mental Healthcare

NPJ Digital Medicine published the results of a study on telehealth disparities across specialties on August 21. Researchers found that “telehealth encounters were associated with reduced no-show odds compared to in-person encounters.”

The report explained that researchers performed a retrospective analysis of electronic health records (EHRs) from a network of hospitals in Illinois, examining telehealth use and no-shows among 444,752 adult patients with 1,973,098 outpatient encounters across nine specialties during the sustained pandemic phase (i.e., January 1, 2021, to July 1, 2022). “Among them, 84,290 (4.27%) were no-shows, and telehealth constituted 202,933 (10.3%) of the total encounters.”

Researchers concluded that mental healthcare has the highest telehealth usage rate and no-show odds. “Black and Hispanic patients, as well as those with Medicaid, had higher no-show odds relative to their counterparts, even when using telehealth,” the report stated.

The report highlighted that specialty type had differential effects on telehealth no-shows. The researchers stated that they hope their findings can inform policymakers to tailor policies and incentives to reach different patient groups and specialties with varying needs to promote equitable telehealth utilization.