Growth in Pandemic Use of Telehealth Services in NY

June 25, 2021

The following message comes from NYS Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli:

Growth in Use of Telehealth Services Among Medicaid and Child Health Plus Beneficiaries in New York
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted many changes in the ways New Yorkers conducted daily activities, with remote learning and remote work becoming common in New York and across the country. The pandemic also spurred a change in how people sought and received medical care; rather than visiting medical practitioners in person, increasing numbers of people used telehealth services. While telehealth usage in New York and nationally has declined since the pandemic peak, it remains well above pre-pandemic levels, though still only a small share of overall utilization.

The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) defines telehealth services as “the exchange of medical information from one site to another through electronic communication to improve a patient’s health.” Often, these services are performed through live audio or video conferencing. While comprehensive data on telehealth visits performed across all provider and service categories are unavailable, CMS data on telehealth utilization among New York Medicaid and Child Health Plus (CHP) beneficiaries are available for the period from January 2018 through November 2020 (the most recent information available).
Telehealth services provided to New York beneficiaries began to increase before the pandemic, growing from slightly more than 1,200 monthly in January 2018 to almost twice that amount in January 2019 (see Figure 1). By January 2020, just prior to the pandemic, telehealth utilization had more than doubled again, reaching over 5,000 visits per month.

FIGURE 1: New York Medicaid and CHP Monthly Telehealth Utilization, January 2018 through January 2020
Source: U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Starting in March 2020, telehealth services utilized by the State’s Medicaid and CHP beneficiaries climbed sharply to 208,506 visits, as shown below. As the State entered a lockdown in April, telehealth use reached a record 707,588 monthly visits. In April 2020, the usage rate was 102 telehealth services per 1,000 beneficiaries, compared to less than 1 service per 1,000 beneficiaries prior to March 2020.

As the State began to ease restrictions, telehealth use declined steadily through October 2020, and then dropped precipitously in November 2020 to 41,767 from 292,237. Even in November 2020, telehealth use was still eight times greater than the previous January.

FIGURE 2: New York Medicaid and CHP Monthly Telehealth Utilization, January 2020 through November 2020
Source: U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Demographic data show that adults from 25 through 64 years of age accounted for 59 percent of all telehealth services for Medicaid and CHP beneficiaries from March through November 2020, as shown in Figure 3. Female beneficiaries accounted for 62 percent during the same period.

FIGURE 3: New York Medicaid and CHP Telehealth Utilization by Age, March 2020 through November 2020 Total
Source: U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Some services were more likely to be performed via telehealth than others. The CMS data about the types of telehealth services used by the State’s beneficiaries during the pandemic period show 70 percent were categorized broadly as office or outpatient evaluation and management (E/M) and another 26 percent were behavioral health E/M, as shown in Figure 4. Other services were not commonly performed via telehealth: physical, occupational and speech therapy telehealth visits accounted for just 1 percent of usage; and home health, nursing facility and emergency department services were less than 1 percent.

FIGURE 4: New York Medicaid and CHP Telehealth Utilization by Type of Service, March 2020 through November 2020 Total
Source: U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Visit the NYS Comptroller web page to continue reading about policy implications.