Use of telemedicine increased during the COVID-19 pandemic as in-person doctors' visits declined, a new study finds.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, collected data on patient care in 2018, 2019 and 2020 to find how trends shifted as the pandemic started.
They found that usage of telemedicine increased from around 12 million virtual visits in 2018 and 2019, to more than 168 million in 2020, a 14-fold spike.
Meanwhile, in-person visits declined from from 1.1 billion in 2018 and 2019, to 760 million in 2020, a decline of about one-third.
Once the pandemic began, in-person visits went into a free fall while virtual telemedicine visits spiked. Despite the pandemic, virtual visits never became more common than in-person ones
Many doctors' offices and hospitals began to limit in-person visits and transitioned to virtual care as COVID-19 began to take hold in the nation.
While telemedicine always existed, it was rarely preferred to an in-person doctor visit.
Last year, though, as fear of the virus kept many at home, patients became willing to adopt virtual care as replacement for many doctor visits.
There were only 8.6 million virtual visits in quarter one of 2020 - a near three-fold increase over the average quarter from 2019 (three million visits) but still a total dwarfed by the months to come.
Usage of telemedicine was at its highest in the second quarter of 2020, with 77.2 million visits.
It then declined and stabilized in the third and fourth quarters, with 43.8 million and 44.2 million visits respectfully.
A similar shift - but reversed - was seen in the second half of the year for in-person visits as well.
There were 250.8 million in-person doctor visits in quarter one of 2020, before the total dramatically dropped to 147.8 million in quarter two.
Americans began to return to the doctor in the second half of the year, though, with 181.1 million in-office visits in quarter three, and 180.2 in quarter four.
In total, in-person visits dropped by 30 percent from 1.1 billion in 2018 and 2019 to 760 million in 2020.
Despite the pandemic, in-person visits still remained more popular than virtual care.
Total doctor visits declined last year, from over 1.1 billion in both 2018 and 2019 to 928 million visits last year - a 15 percent decrease - as people chose to stay home during the pandemic.
The drop in overall doctor visits had potentially catastrophic effects, as deaths from both diabetes and heart disease jumped last year - with experts pointing to the decrease of doctor visits for the increases.
People with long term conditions stopped seeing the doctor as often last year, leading to a spike in deaths from diabetes and heart disease, among other conditions
The researchers, who will publish
