Main roads
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Telemedicine did not increase costs
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It also did not provide more reach with more visits
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Experts say it is too soon to tell about long-term trends
TUESDAY, May 12, 2026 (NewsDay News) — Telemedicine appears to be breaking even in terms of both access and cost in the United States, a new study says.
It hasn’t cost the United States much in terms of health care costs, but it hasn’t led to a significant expansion of access to health care, according to findings published May 11 in the US. JAMA Open Network.
When the feds responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by relaxing telemedicine rules in 2020, some experts worried that the move would increase health care costs, researchers said.
At the same time, proponents hoped that the wider availability of telemedicine would help people without easy access to doctors.
“Our findings show that none of the predictions were fulfilled at the national scale,” said the lead researcher Dr. John Mafiassociate professor-in-residence at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine in Los Angeles.
“As the use of telemedicine increases, visits and costs in heavy users are followed by patterns in lighter users,” Mafi said in a news release. “It’s reassuring for anyone worried about ballooning costs, but also for anyone hoping telemedicine will close long-standing access gaps. At least so far, it looks more like a replacement for personal care than a real expansion.”
For the study, researchers analyzed the medical claims of more than 3 million US adults who had 120 million medical visits and spent more than $178 billion between 2019 and 2023.
Overall, the researchers found that telemedicine visits decreased by 2.4% during the study period, and costs decreased by 0.5%. However, these results were not statistically significant, meaning they can be explained by chance.
Urban residents had 4.4% fewer visits and 2.3% less spending, while rural residents had 3.4% more visits and 3.8% more spending – but again, these numbers were not statistically significant.
Tracking these trends is important, the researchers said, because the current rules governing telemedicine are set to expire in 2027 and lawmakers continue to debate whether to extend or change them.
These results should be considered early readings in the still-evolving medical landscape, the senior researcher said Dr. Catherine Kahnprofessor of medicine at UCLA.
“Our analysis continues only at the end of 2023, when the use of telemedicine was still single to the new equilibrium,” he said in a news release.
“More work is needed to understand the long-term effects of telemedicine on quality of care, health outcomes, and costs, and whether these effects hold across different populations that depend on it,” Kahn said. “Policymakers should monitor closely as the evidence base matures.”
More information
American Hospital Association more about it telehealth.
Sources: UCLA, release, May 11, 2026; JAMA Open NetworkMay 11, 2026
What does this mean for you?
Health seems to be deteriorating even at this point, which does not result in an increase in new patients or an increase in costs.
