A report from the office of the Assistant Secretary of Planning and Evaluation at HHS provides information for policy considerations by analyzing trends in Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) beneficiary use of telehealth compared to in-person visits in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic and in 2020 during the pandemic. The number of Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) beneficiary telehealth visits increased 63-fold in 2020, from approximately 840,000 in 2019 to nearly 52.7 million in 2020. Despite the increase in telehealth visits during the pandemic, total utilization of all Medicare FFS Part B clinician visits declined about 11% in 2020 compared to levels in 2019. Most beneficiaries (92%) received telehealth visits from their homes, which was not permissible in Medicare prior to the pandemic.

The report can be obtained at https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/a1d5d810fe3433e18b192be42dbf2351/medicare-telehealth-report.pdf.