Characteristics of Medicare Beneficiaries with Chronic Diseases Utilizing Telemedicine and the Impact on Overall Costs, Outpatient Costs, Inpatient Costs, and Number of Inpatient Admissions

In the healthcare industry in the United States, utilization of telemedicine to treat chronic and acute care conditions shows promise in increasing access, decreasing costs, and improving patient satisfaction. While telemedicine is not a new idea, only in recent years has there been the culmination of innovation, legislation, and advancement in practice to forge new virtual paths to high-quality treatment of patients through telemedicine utilization. The study design is a retrospective quasi-experimental cohort analysis of secondary patient claims data from 2012 to 2014. Using data from the Medicare Limited Data Set 5% Medicare sample, we compare healthcare costs for two groups of Medicare beneficiaries with chronic disease: those who utilized a telemedicine service and those who had a traditional face-to-face visit. Propensity score (PS) weighting was used to match the groups on age, race, sex, dual eligibility for Medicare and Medicaid. Analysis of the cost outcome utilized a gamma distributed models with log link functions controlling for age, Charlson Score, and Hypertension. When examining a six-month post visit period, results found a cost saving of $1,828 for the Telehealth group compared to the matched group of beneficiaries with an in-person visit. Telehealth is a promising approach to increase access to care and is associated with decreased costs for Medicare beneficiaries with chronic disease