The Association Between Telehealth Use and Health Care Costs Among Rural Medicare Fee for Service Beneficiaries During the COVID‐19 Pandemic

Key Points

• To evaluate the relationship between telehealth use and health care costs among rural Medicare beneficiaries during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Analyzed health care cost data for rural Medicare beneficiaries
• Compared costs between telehealth and non-telehealth users
• Assessed changes over the pandemic period
• Telehealth users had higher total costs compared to 2019-2020
• Rural telehealth users experienced greater declines in total costs than non-telehealth users
• Urban beneficiaries did not show the same level of cost decline as rural telehealth users