Health Care Usage During the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Adoption of Telemedicine: Retrospective Study of Chronic Disease Cohorts

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated telehealth adoption across disease cohorts of patients. For many patients,routine medical care was no longer an option, and others chose not to visit medical offices in order to minimize COVID-19 exposure. In this study, we take a comprehensive multidisease approach in studying the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic onhealth care usage and the adoption of telemedicine through the first 12 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Objective: We studied the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on in-person health care usage and telehealth adoption acrosschronic diseases to understand differences in telehealth adoption across disease cohorts and patient demographics (such as theSocial Vulnerability Index [SVI]). Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 6 different disease cohorts (anxiety: n=67,578; depression: n=45,570;diabetes: n=81,885; kidney failure: n=29,284; heart failure: n=21,152; and cancer: n=35,460). We used summary statistics tocharacterize changes in usage and regression analysis to study how patient characteristics relate to in-person health care andtelehealth adoption and usage during the first 12 months of the pandemic. Results: We observed a reduction in in-person health care usage across disease cohorts (ranging from 10% to 24%). For mostdiseases we study, telehealth appointments offset the reduction in in-person visits. Furthermore, for anxiety and depression, theincrease in telehealth usage exceeds the reduction in in-person visits (by up to 5%). We observed that younger patients and menhave higher telehealth usage after accounting for other covariates. Patients from higher SVI areas are less likely to use telehealth;however, if they do, they have a higher number of telehealth visits, after accounting for other covariates. Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic affected health care usage across diseases, and the role of telehealth in replacingin-person visits varies by disease cohort. Understanding these differences can inform current practices and provides opportunitiesto further guide modalities of in-person and telehealth visits. Critically, further study is needed to understand barriers to telehealthservice usage for patients in higher SVI areas. A better understanding of the role of social determinants of health may lead tomore support for patients and help individual health care providers improve access to care for patients with chronic conditions.