Primary care telehealth utilization by access-challenged populations in Medicare Advantage

Although telehealth utilization in primary care has decreased markedly since 2020, it remains higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic. There is debate about its role in a post-pandemic healthcare system, particularly for certain groups of patients that may experience greater access challenges related to in-person care. To inform this debate, we examined the use of audiovisual telehealth for primary care as a share of total primary care outpatient visits among Medicare Advantage beneficiaries with and without 3 characteristics associated with potential access challenges (low-income status, disability, and frailty). Primary care visits when the beneficiary was frail were 39.4% (OR: 1.39 [95% CI, 1.37-1.42]) more likely to be telehealth; when the beneficiary was disabled or low-income status, visits were 20.1% (OR: 1.20 [95% CI, 1.18-1.22]) and 8.3% (OR: 1.08 [95% CI, 1.05-1.12]) more likely to be telehealth, respectively. The differential use of telehealth among beneficiaries with low-income status or disability, compared with those without, was significantly larger among providers with a 2-sided risk contract compared with fee for service (low-income status: OR: 1.19 [95% CI, 1.04-1.35]; disability: OR: 1.07 [95% CI, 1.01-1.13]).