A new study by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine found that telemedicine visits at Penn Medicine are considerably cheaper than in-person appointments.<\/p>\n
The study<\/a>, led by Biostatistics professor Yong Chen and Senior Vice President for Strategic Initiatives David Asch, analyzed electronic health record and billing data across the University of Pennsylvania Health System. They found that telemedicine visits were associated<\/a> with hospital charges roughly five times lower than comparable in-person appointments.<\/p>\n The research \u2014 which assessed four months of data representing over 160,000 visits \u2014 focused on 10 common outpatient conditions treated through both telemedicine and in-person visits. Using what they described as a 30-day episode framework, the researchers tracked hospital charges and subsequent utilization beginning with an initial visit.\u00a0<\/p>\n They found that telemedicine initial visits charged $96 on average, while in-office appointments charged $509. Charges for mental and behavioral health conditions were comparable<\/a> across both formats, although telemedicine was linked to fewer follow-up visits.<\/p>\n Chen told The Daily Pennsylvanian that a \u201csubstantial portion\u201d of patients still use telemedicine for their visits, since it offers \u201cconvenience\u201d for people who may not live near a hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen people talk about telemedicine, the misconception is that they may not be able to get the same quality of care compared to in-person visits,\u201d Chen said. \u201cThat\u2019s one of the reasons that the adoption of telemedicine was pretty low before the pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n According to PhD student Bingyu Zhang, who was involved in the research, there was \u201crapid adoption\u201d of telemedicine visits following the COVID-19 pandemic. Years later, she said, it remains a common mode of health care delivery, creating a need for \u201cmore research\u201d on the topic.<\/p>\n Zhang explained that the study\u2019s findings have implications both for healthcare systems and patients.<\/p>\n \u201cHealthcare systems would appreciate this kind of study to support their decisions on health care delivery and how to allocate their resources,\u201d she told the DP. \u201cAnd I think it\u2019s really convenient for patients to have the additional option of telemedicine.\u201d<\/p>\n The team also discovered that telemedicine patients had roughly one fewer follow-up visits within 30 days of their initial appointments than in-person patients.\u00a0<\/p>\n Chen highlighted the scale of collaboration behind the study, which included clinicians, statisticians, IT staff, and other health system experts. He also noted that future research will examine how telemedicine can be balanced with in-person care through hybrid models.<\/p>\n \u201cThe key is trying to find a good balance between the supply and the needs,\u201d Chen said. \u201cWithin that balance, we need to optimize how we provide that health care to those patients.\u201d<\/p>\n Senior reporter Saanvi Ram covers undergraduate sciences and can be reached at ram@thedp.com<\/a>. At Penn, she studies health and societies. Follow her on X @Saanvi_vivi<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new study by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine found that telemedicine visits at Penn Medicine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":{"0":"post-140570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-philadelphia","9":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","10":"tag-philadelphia-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}