Telehealth Grew Wildly Popular Amid COVID-19. Now Visits Are Plunging

A decline in telemedicine visits across the United States is forcing providers to recalibrate their services, reports STAT . Electronic health record company Epic estimates that telehealth visits fell from 69 percent of total encounters at the early height of the COVID-19 crisis in April to 21 percent by the middle of July. In the wake of this slippage, hospitals that scrambled to retrain staff to deliver virtual care in March are now struggling to rebalance according to shifting patient preferences and requirements. "We're trying to right-size, but it's really hard because during the pandemic we switched to nearly 100 percent virtual in some clinical areas, and we know that's not realistic or sustainable," said Michigan Medicine's Jessie DeVito. Several large health systems said the transition involves careful consideration of which clinical conditions should prioritize in-person attention and which cases can be handled just as effectively with virtual appointments. Also vital is determining when hybrid in-person/virtual visits will be most cost-efficient for providers as they attempt to optimally manage both patients and bottom lines after months of plummeting revenue. Not all specialities are seeing declines, as traditional providers are still conducting most mental health visits over phone or video, while specialists that usually provide more hands-on care — like orthopedists — are seeing more clients return to their offices.