Q & A from the Report Author of Telemedicine Use Among Physicians

Questions for Kelly Myrick, Statistician and Lead Author of “Telemedicine Use Among Physicians by Physician Specialty: United States, 2021.”

Q: Why did you decide to do a report on telemedicine usage among physicians?

KM: Telemedicine technology is a shared topic of interest of the coauthors. We wanted to explore telemedicine technology by physician specialty on a nationally representative level.

Q: What were the key findings in this report?

KM: More medical specialists used telemedicine for 50% or more of their patients visits than primary care physicians and surgical specialists.

Over 70% of primary care physicians and medical specialists responded “to some extent or a great extent” when asked if they were able to provide a similar quality of care during telemedicine visits compared with in-person visits; this is compared with about one-half of surgical specialists.

Primary care physicians and medical specialists were more likely satisfied with telemedicine technology compared with surgical specialists.

Almost one-half of surgical specialists reported that telemedicine technology was not appropriate for their specialty or type of patients.

Q: Do you have comparative trend data that goes further back than 2021?

KM: We can make comparative trend comparisons limited to telemedicine use. The National Electronic Health Records Survey data from 2018 and 2019, which were collected before the 2019 novel coronavirus pandemic, define telemedicine use as audio with video or web videoconference.

The additional questions explored in this data brief on the percentage of use, quality of care during telemedicine visits similar to in-person visits, satisfaction, and appropriateness of use were not asked previously.

Q: How was this data collected?

KM: The survey used mixed-mode data collection, including a self-administered web questionnaire and a self-administered paper questionnaire.

Q: What is the main takeaway message here?

KM: Medical specialists stand out in their use of telemedicine technology, as more than one-quarter reported that 50% of their patient visits or more used telemedicine technology.

Almost one-half of surgical specialists reported that telemedicine technology was not appropriate for their specialty or type of patients.