Racial and Ethnic Differences in Hypertension-Related Telehealth and In-Person Outpatient Visits Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic Among Medicaid Beneficiaries

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Telemed J E Health
• Personal Author:
  Lee, Jun Soo ; Bhatt, Ami ; Pollack, Lisa M. ; Jackson, Sandra L. ; Omeaku, Nina ; Beasley, Kincaid Lowe ; Wilson, Cidney ; Luo, Feijun ; Roy, Kakoli
• Description:
  Background:
  
  Little is known about the trends and costs of hypertension management through telehealth among individuals enrolled in Medicaid.
  
  Methods:
  
  Using MarketScan® Medicaid database, we examined outpatient visits among people with hypertension aged 18–64 years. We presented the numbers of hypertension-related telehealth and in-person outpatient visits per 100 individuals and the proportion of hypertension-related telehealth outpatient visits to total outpatient visits by month, overall, and by race and ethnicity. For the cost analysis, we presented total and patient out-of-pocket (OOP) costs per visit for telehealth and in-person visits in 2021.
  
  Results:
  
  Of the 229,562 individuals, 114,445 (49.9%) were non-Hispanic White, 80,692 (35.2%) were non-Hispanic Black, 3,924 (1.71%) were Hispanic. From February to April 2020, the number of hypertension-related telehealth outpatient visits per 100 persons increased from 0.01 to 6.13, the number of hypertension-related in-person visits decreased from 61.88 to 52.63, and the proportion of hypertension-related telehealth outpatient visits increased from 0.01% to 10.44%. During that same time, the proportion increased from 0.02% to 13.9% for non-Hispanic White adults, from 0.00% to 7.58% for non-Hispanic Black adults, and from 0.12% to 19.82% for Hispanic adults. The average total and patient OOP costs per visit in 2021 were $83.82 (95% confidence interval [CI], 82.66–85.05) and $0.55 (95% CI, 0.42–0.68) for telehealth and $264.48 (95% CI, 258.87–269.51) and $0.72 (95% CI, 0.65–0.79) for in-person visits, respectively.
  
  Conclusions:
  
  Hypertension management via telehealth increased among Medicaid recipients regardless of race and ethnicity, during the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings may inform telehealth policymakers and health care practitioners.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Adolescent Adult Ambulatory Care Black Or African American COVID-19 Ethnicity Female Hispanic Or Latino Humans Hypertension Male Medicaid Middle Aged Pandemics Racial Groups SARS-CoV-2 Telemedicine United States White Young Adult

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• Keywords:
  Ethnicity Hypertension-related Telehealth In-person Outpatient Race Telehealth Outpatient Telehealth Outpatient Cost
• Source:
  Telemed J E Health. 30(5):1262-1271
• Pubmed ID:
  38241486
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC11065593
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  CC999999/ImCDC/Intramural CDC HHSUnited States/
• Volume:
  30
• Issue:
  5
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:ca23c18a1c73705b1044778ea053eccaf295a98f31e1b7e07c569acd01bc449c4114fce9f3e49aed183af32897a87766548909be8fd576761dca0b0870c3775e
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/155131/cdc_155131_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 729.18 KB ]