Telehealth and Outpatient Visits Among Individuals with Chronic Conditions by Socioeconomic Status
Commercially insured adults with chronic conditions residing in higher socioeconomic neighborhoods had greater telehealth and overall outpatient use during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, whereas telehealth use was similar across lower and middle socioeconomic groups.
The rapid expansion of telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic raised concerns about unequal access across socioeconomic groups, particularly for individuals with chronic conditions who require ongoing care. Early studies focused on the pandemic’s initial months, leaving uncertainty about whether disparities in telehealth use persisted over a longer period.
Published in Telemedicine and e-Health, this study examined telehealth and total outpatient visit use by neighborhood-level socioeconomic status (SES) among commercially insured adults with chronic conditions during the pandemic’s first year. In the first year of the pandemic, telehealth and outpatient visit use was highest among people living in the most affluent neighborhoods, yet those in lower SES neighborhoods did not experience meaningfully lower access to care than those in middle SES neighborhoods.
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