While telehealth adoption remains higher than pre-COVID pandemic levels, that adoption hasn’t necessarily been uniform across clinical conditions, age groups, geographic locations, and types of insurance, according to a review by McKinsey and Company. And health care organizations can pursue additional opportunities to close the disparities gap.

The review estimated that more than 50 million in-person visits per year could be converted to virtual or telemedicine visits if adoption were extended equally across patient segments. In general, patient segments with limited access to in-person care had relatively fewer virtual visits.

While there is the belief that virtual care can improve access for the underserved, the current imbalance in usage suggests that U.S. health care stakeholders could consider designing virtual-care models that address structural barriers so that virtual care is more widely accessible, according to McKinsey and Company.

The review also found that virtual-care adoption in the U.S. is highest for behavioral health specialties and lowest for procedural specialties, such as urology and gastroenterology. In addition, the review indicated that virtual-care adoption is four percentage points higher in urban areas when compared with rural areas.

Socioeconomic factors also play a key role in the adoption of virtual care, according to the review. Virtual-health care adoption varies by type of insurance and is six percentage points higher with payers other than Medicare.

Read the review article here.