The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Telemedicine Use and Outpatient Care

This project will conduct three analyses on the role of telemedicine in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and how it has impacted access to care, including 1) assessing whether vulnerable populations (by race, income, and rurality) are less likely to receive telemedicine; 2) comparing telemedicine use across patients with and without chronic illnesses, specialties, and clinical conditions; and 3) assessing variation in telemedicine use across primary care practices and its impact on preventive care. These analyses will be conducted for both Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries using the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Virtual Research Data Center data and for those with commercial insurance or Medicare Advantage using Optum data.