The J.D. Energy 2024 U.S. Telehealth Satisfaction Research launched on Thursday exhibits a slight lower, down 1% from final 12 months, in affected person satisfaction with direct-to-consumer telehealth suppliers and a considerable enhance, up 18%, in satisfaction with payer-provided telehealth choices.
The research, based mostly on 4,070 healthcare shoppers’ responses inside the previous 12 months, measures sufferers’ satisfaction with telehealth providers based mostly on seven components: ease of receiving care, digital channels, whether or not a supplier met their wants, degree of belief, scheduling appointments, folks, and saving time or cash.
It finds that 65% of survey respondents stated the highest motive for utilizing telehealth is comfort, with 46% saying they used it because of the potential to obtain care shortly and 30% as a result of having a situation that is lined through a telehealth go to.
The research famous a tie between problem with web/mobile connectivity (25%) and restricted providers offered (25%) as being the highest limitations to shoppers receiving telehealth, and 15% stated that they had knowledge safety considerations with private/medical info.
Shoppers famous they like telehealth for treatment evaluation and power care follow-up.
Virtually one-third (74%) of shoppers who had a optimistic expertise with treatment evaluation stated they might use the service once more. As compared, solely 58% of these with a problematic expertise stated they might use telehealth once more.
Forty-four p.c of telehealth sufferers with power circumstances who had a straightforward expertise stated they might use the service once more. In distinction, 28% of those that had a unfavourable expertise stated they might use telehealth once more.
Sufferers lined by Medicaid, Gen Y and Gen Z people, and people residing in city environments had the very best total satisfaction with digital care suppliers.
Medicaid sufferers and people privately insured, together with child boomers, older generations, and people residing in suburban environments, had the bottom satisfaction with telehealth suppliers.
“The telehealth market has grown quickly, and though its utilization has been normalized lately, we’re nonetheless in a development part the place people can have vastly completely different experiences based mostly on the suppliers they use, their medical circumstances and even issues like the standard of web and telephone connections the place they reside,” stated Christopher Lis, managing director of worldwide healthcare intelligence at J.D. Energy, stated in a press release.
“Most shoppers agree that telehealth is hard to beat relating to comfort and accessing care shortly, however it’s not the perfect channel for all healthcare encounters. The vast variation in affected person expertise is one thing telehealth suppliers, insurers and public well being officers will need to monitor carefully.”
THE LARGER TREND
Telehealth use surged throughout the pandemic. Now that the pandemic has slowed, telemedicine has remained part of sufferers’ experiences, particularly in comparison with pre-pandemic occasions, although the usage of the modality varies amongst suppliers.
Earlier this 12 months, the CDC Nationwide Heart for Well being Statistics launched knowledge from the Nationwide Digital Well being Information Survey, citing that in 2021, 27.4% extra medical specialists used telemedicine for half of their affected person visits, greater than main care physicians and surgical specialists.
Main care physicians (76.7%) and medical specialists (73.1%) have been capable of present sufferers with the same high quality of care as in-person visits, and each have been extra more likely to be happy with the know-how in comparison with surgical specialists, 49.7% of which stated telemedicine was not acceptable for his or her specialty or sufferers.
