Although telehealth use has dropped by almost 25% from its peak in 2020, telehealth use for behavioral health services remains strong, according to a recent study from Epic Research.
The study evaluated 475,229,277 telehealth and in person encounters between the second quarter of 2019 and the third quarter of 2023, with telehealth averaging less than 1% of visits pre-pandemic in the last three quarters of 2019 across all specialties.
Telehealth usage peaked across all specialties in the second quarter of 2020. Behavioral and mental health was the specialty with the most use of telehealth at that point, at 65.5%, with endocrinology in second at 55.5%. Meanwhile, behavioral health continued to have the highest rates of telehealth utilization in 2023 at 37%.