About 89 percent of telehealth visits nationally do not require an in-person follow-up visit for the same clinical reason within one week, according to an Aug. 20 study from Trilliant health.
Trilliant Health, an evidence-based strategy provider for healthcare systems, analyzed its national all-payer claims data between the second quarter of 2021 and the third quarter of 2022 for patients who utilized telehealth.
The analysis discovered that 11.1 percent of telehealth appointments required an in-person follow-up visit for the same medical reason within a week. Additionally, the clinical reason that most commonly resulted in an in-person follow-up visit was behavioral health diagnoses.
Telehealth is often utilized for treating low-acuity conditions, as most entail medication-based treatments that can be prescribed remotely. However, chronic conditions such as diabetes or back pain are increasingly being treated with telehealth, resulting in a rise in these duplicate visits, as treatment for those conditions usually entails a more high-touch approach.