Musculoskeletal Telemedicine Trends Preceding the COVID‐19 Pandemic and Potential Implications of Rapid Telemedicine Expansion

摘要: Introduction. Telemedicine was rapidly deployed at the onset of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Little has been published on telemedicine in musculoskeletal care prior to the COVID‐19 pandemic. This study is aimed at characterizing trends in telemedicine for musculoskeletal care preceding the COVID‐19 pandemic. Methods. This retrospective study used insurance claims from the Truven MarketScan database. Musculoskeletal‐specific outpatient visits from 2014 to 2018 were identified using the musculoskeletal major diagnostic category ICD‐10 codes. Telemedicine visits were categorized using CPT codes and Healthcare Common Procedure Coding Systems. We described annual trends in telemedicine in the overall dataset and by diagnosis grouping. Multivariable logistic regression modeling estimated the association between patient‐specific and telemedicine visit variables and telemedicine utilization. Results …