Rise in Telemedicine Tied to Modest Decrease in Low-Value, Point-of-Care Testing

TUESDAY, March 4, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Telemedicine adoption is associated with modestly lower use of low-value, point-of-care testing among Medicare beneficiaries, according to a study published online Feb. 24 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Ishani Ganguli, M.D., from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women”s Hospital in Boston, and colleagues sought to quantify the association between telemedicine adoption and low-value testing among fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries. Beneficiary-level linear regression in a difference-in-differences (DiD) analysis included a sample of 1.38 million Medicare beneficiaries who were attributed to high-telemedicine systems and 999,051 beneficiaries who were attributed to low-telemedicine systems.

The researchers found that from 2019 to 2022, those in high-telemedicine systems had a small differential rise in visits (DiD visits per beneficiary, 0.12) and differential decreases in the use of seven of 20 low-value tests (mostly point of care): cervical cancer screening (DiD, −0.45 percentage points [pp]), screening electrocardiograms (DiD, −1.30 pp), screening metabolic panels (DiD, −1.84 pp), preoperative complete blood cell counts (DiD, −0.64 pp), preoperative metabolic panels (DiD, −1.35 pp), total or free triiodothyronine level testing for hypothyroidism (DiD, −0.90 pp), and imaging for uncomplicated low back pain (DiD, −1.66 pp). Additionally, patients in high-telemedicine systems saw statistically significant differential decreases in spending on visits per beneficiary (−$47.87) and on two of 20 low-value tests, although there were no differences in low-value spending overall.

“Results suggest possible benefits of telemedicine and mitigate concerns about telemedicine contributing to increased spending,” the authors write.

Two authors disclosed ties to the health care and technology industry.

Abstract/Full Text