Telehealth use in primary care stabilizes: research

Dive Brief:

• Telehealth use in primary care has held fairly stable in recent years, suggesting the sector has reached an equilibrium after a boom in virtual care amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an analysis by Epic Research. 
• Telehealth visits accounted for over 8% of primary care encounters in July 2022, according to the research published on Tuesday. By October 2025, telehealth made up just under 6% of visits — a roughly 30% decline. 
• But since 2023, the share of virtual care visits in primary care has held relatively steady at around 6% to 7% of appointments.

Dive Insight: 

Telehealth utilization exploded during the pandemic as patients and clinicians sought out methods to preserve access to care while avoiding in-person contact. 

The boom was supported by new reimbursement and policy flexibilities enacted by the federal government, including changes that allowed for significantly more telehealth coverage in Medicare and virtual prescriptions of controlled substances. 

However, as the public health emergency wound down, telehealth use declined across specialties, according to previous research from Epic. Mental healthcare remains the biggest area for virtual care, comprising more than 26% of visits in October 2025. 

Meanwhile, the share of telehealth in primary care was just over 6% that same month. However, utilization varied across groups, according to the analysis, which studied more than 400 million primary care visits between July 2022 and October 2025. 

For example, telehealth continues to be more common for patients living in metropolitan areas. These patients consistently had about twice the rate of telehealth use compared with those in rural communities, according to the study.

Telehealth can be particularly helpful in rural communities, as patients often face long travel times to in-person care, advocates and experts say. However, other research has noted potential barriers to using the technology in rural areas, like financial challenges among local hospitals setting up telehealth programs and less access to high-speed internet. 

Age was another factor determining telehealth use in primary care, with working-age adults using virtual care more often compared with very young kids and the oldest patients. Adults between the ages of 25 and 39 used telehealth in around 10% of primary care encounters during the study, compared with below 2% for children ages 0 to 2.

Patients whose preferred language wasn’t English also tended to utilize more telehealth in primary care, despite earlier research suggesting that limited English could be a barrier to telehealth use. 

Patients who spoke Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, Persian and Spanish had “substantially higher” baseline use of telehealth, and their utilization rates remained higher than English speakers at the end of the study. 

The research didn’t examine why patients chose telehealth, but a variety of factors — like the availability of translation services, convenience or reduced travel times — could be relevant for working age adults and patients whose preferred language isn’t English, Caleb Cox, head of research at Epic, said via email.

The analysis comes as telehealth providers have recently gained policy stability. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed a federal government funding bill into law that extends Medicare telehealth coverage flexibilities through 2027.