Association Between Telemedicine Use and Outpatient Visits Among Hypertensive Patients With Disabilities During...

BackgroundThe Korean government allowed for the temporary provision of non-face-to-face healthcare services (telemedicine) from 24 February 2020, due to the widespread outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). To provide further evidence to inform and support future policies on telemedicine, we compared its utilization rates for hypertension (HTN) treatments both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsThis quasi-experimental study utilized 2019-2020 claims data from the Korean National Health Insurance Service to evaluate the numbers of outpatient visits for HTN by patients with disabilities in that period. Multivariable regression and difference-in-difference (DID) analyses were then conducted to compare the use of outpatient and telemedicine services due to HTN during the COVID-19 pandemic.ResultsAmong patients with disabilities and also HTN identified in 2019, 9,254 accessed telemedicine appointments in 2020 compared to 635,959 cases in the control group. After 1:1 propensity score matching (PSM), the telemedicine and control patient groups each comprised 9,170 patients. Upon adjusting for other variables, the number of outpatient visits decreased by 0.57 cases in the telemedicine group compared to that in the control group. After 1:1 PSM, this decrease was 0.30 cases. DID analysis revealed that the number of outpatient visits in the telemedicine group had decreased by 0.9 cases compared to the control group, which was a higher decrease at 1.0 cases after PSM.ConclusionsTelemedicine services are a viable alternative mode of healthcare delivery for patients with limited access to in-person care, particularly during epidemics and pandemics.