Telemedicine use increases among rural Medicare beneficiaries

By examining Medicare claims data, Harvard Medical School researchers found that the number of telemedicine visits provided to Medicare beneficiaries increased by 28 percent per year from 2004 to 2013 with 107,000 visits provided in 2013. Over 40,000 rural Medicare beneficiaries received one telemedicine visit in 2013, and those patients had a mean of 2.6 visits each. Disabled beneficiaries with mental illness, who were relatively sicker and poorer than the average Medicare user, were the most likely to have received telemedicine services; the vast majority of those visits were for mental health conditions.