Telemedicine scores high marks as replacement for in-person visits, study finds

As the use of telehealth services surges in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, a new study finds that the majority of doctor visits conducted via telemedicine are an appropriate replacement for in-person care. Researchers looked at more than 6,500 video, phone, or email consults made by both primary and specialty care physicians at two large academic and two community centers. Around 70% of these visits met the criteria that scientists set for assessing appropriateness, including whether the visit was urgent and whether the patient's case didn't need an in-person evaluation. Overall, more than 81% of these consults were considered useful because they also helped avoid in-person visits within a three-month span, with psychiatry visits having the highest such rate. In a related editorial, researchers write that telemedicine consults could help cut costs in providing care, but that more research is needed to tease out the savings.