The coronavirus pandemic caused much disruption in the medical industry, but there was a silver lining: According to a report released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), telehealth visits under Medicare increased to 52.7 million in 2020, up from only 840,000 the previous year. Interestingly, most of the visits — 92% — occurred in the home of the beneficiary, which typically was not permitted before COVID-19. This represents a 63-fold increase in the utilization of telehealth under Medicare, but new reports are showing that overall use of this technology has increased by 38% as compared to the pre-COVID era.
