Higher than expected telemedicine use by racial and ethnic minority and cognitively impaired Medicare beneficiaries.

ABSTRACT: Although pandemic-era telemedicine flexibilities may have preserved access to care, concerns remain that telemedicine may have been inequitably distributed among older adults, especially those with mild cognitive impairment or dementia (MCID). As telemedicine flexibilities are set to fully expire on December 31, 2024, we aimed to examine pandemic-era and future-intended telemedicine use among older Americans to help inform post-pandemic telemedicine policy design. We hypothesized that telemedicine would be disproportionately underutilized among older adults with MCID or with racial and ethnic minority status. We used nationally representative survey data from the Health and Retirement Study and analyzed pandemic-era and future-intended telemedicine use among 10 075 Medicare beneficiaries a

SUBMITTER: Cui MM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11776015 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature