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Physicians' telehealth use varies across specialties, practice type
New AMA data reveals that telehealth utilization among physicians has only dropped slightly since 2022; however, factors such as specialty and practice ownership impact its use.
Telehealth use among physicians remained high in 2024, with 71.4% of physicians working in practices that used telehealth. However, utilization varied by specialty and practice ownership, according to new data from the American Medical Association, or AMA.
The data published in the latest AMA Policy Research Perspectives report was gathered from the AMA's nationally representative Physician Practice Benchmark Survey, which is conducted on a biennial basis.
The share of physicians in practices that used telehealth dropped slightly from 79% in 2020 to 74.4% in 2022. This figure dropped again to 71.4% in 2024, but remained high compared to the pre-pandemic figure of 25.1% in 2018.
In 2024, more than half of physicians (52.5%) reported that their practices were using telehealth to manage patients with chronic diseases or to diagnose and treat patients (48.5%). Approximately 40% of physicians worked in practices that utilized telehealth to care for patients with acute diseases, and 25% were in practices that employed it to provide preventive care.
The data further reveals that utilization of synchronous video-based telehealth and audio-only telehealth declined between 2022 and 2024. In 2024, 49.6% of physicians provided a video visit in the week prior to being surveyed, compared to 53.9% in 2022. Similarly, 40.9% of physicians offered audio-only telehealth in 2024 versus 49% in 2022.
Telehealth use differed by practice ownership, with the data showing that physicians in hospital-owned practices were more likely to report telehealth utilization compared to those in private practice. These differences also appear at the specialty level. For instance, 78.9% of primary care physicians in hospital-owned practices said that their practice used synchronous telehealth with patients, compared to only 70.1% of their peers in private practice.
Physicians' telehealth utilization also varied according to their specialty. A majority of psychiatrists (85.9%) had provided a video visit in the week preceding their survey, followed by medical specialists (65.3%), primary care physicians (57.8%) and surgeons (41.8%).
Psychiatrists relied heavily on telehealth, with 68.2% using telehealth for more than 20% of weekly visits.
Among medical specialists, endocrinologists provided the most video visits, with 84% having provided a video visit in the prior week. Cardiologists provided the least, with 58.6% having conducted a video visit in the week preceding the survey. Among primary care physicians, family and general medicine physicians (63.2%) were more likely to have provided a video visit in the prior week than internists (54.4%) and pediatricians (53.8%).
In addition to detailing physicians' telehealth use in 2024, the research also provides the most commonly cited reasons for not using telehealth. Most physicians who did not use telehealth (60.6%) stated that telehealth visits were "not relevant to the work of the specialties in my practice," 36.7% preferred to treat their patients in person and 14% indicated that telehealth was not sufficiently reimbursed.
The research comes as the healthcare industry awaits Congress' decision about the future of telehealth flexibilities. The pandemic-era flexibilities significantly increased access to telehealth, but will expire on Jan. 30, 2026, if Congress does not act to extend or make them permanent.
Anuja Vaidya has covered the healthcare industry since 2012. She currently covers the virtual healthcare landscape, including telehealth, remote patient monitoring and digital therapeutics.
