ABSTRACT
IMPORTANCE: The coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic abruptly impacted health care service delivery and utilization. However, the impact on older adults with diabetes in the United States is unclear. OBJECTIVE: To estimate changes in health care utilization among older adults with diabetes during the initial 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the 2 years before, and to examine the variation in utilization changes by demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. DESIGN SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: In this study, we analyzed changes in utilization, measured by the average use of health care services per 1,000 persons with diabetes, using medical claims for Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries aged 67 years and above. Utilization changes by setting (acute inpatient, emergency room [ER], hospital outpatient, physician office, and ambulatory surgery center [ASC]) and by media (telehealth and in-person) were examined for 22 months of the pandemic (03/2020-12/2021) compared with pre-pandemic period (03/2018-12/2019). We also estimated utilization changes by beneficiaries' age group, sex, race/ethnicity, and residential urbanicity. RESULTS: The study sample consisted of approximately 6 million beneficiaries with diabetes each month. In the first 2 years of the pandemic, the average use of health care services by setting was 5-17% lower than the pre-pandemic level for all types of services. Phase 1 (03/2020-05/2020) had the largest decrease in utilization: physician office visits changed by -51.2% (95% CI, -55.0% to -47.5%), ASC procedures by -45.1% (95% CI, -49.8% to -40.4%), ER visits by -36.9% (95% CI, -39.0% to -34.7%), acute inpatient stays by -31.5% (95% CI, -33.6% to -29.3%), and hospital outpatient visits by -27% (95% CI, -29.3% to -24.8%). The reduction in utilization varied by sociodemographic subgroup. During the pandemic, the use of telehealth visits increased by 511.1% (95% CI, 502.2% to 520.0%) compared to the pre-pandemic period. The increase was smaller among rural residents. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Medicare beneficiaries with diabetes experienced a reduction in the use of health care services during the COVID-19 pandemic, some of which persisted through two years into the pandemic. Telehealth visits increased, but not enough to overcome decreases in in-person visits. Understanding these patterns may help to optimize the use of health care resources for diabetes management in the post-pandemic era and during future emergencies.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-pandemic has abruptly impacted health care systems. Using data from Medicare claims we examined the pandemic-related changes in health care utilization among fee-for-service beneficiaries with diabetes. We included persons with diabetes who were aged ≥ 67 and enrolled in both Part A and B programs for all months of the index year and the previous year. Diabetes was identified by having at least one inpatient or two outpatient claims that were diabetes related. We considered utilization by setting (acute inpatient, emergency room, hospital outpatient [HOP], physician office, and ambulatory surgery center [ASC] procedures) and by media (telehealth and in-person) . Utilization was measured as per person use of each type of health care service for each month from Jan. 2018 to Jun. 2021. We quantified the changes in utilization with a fixed-effect model for all post-pandemic months (3/2020-6/2021) and three phases (3/2020-5/2020;6/2020-12/2020;and 1/2021-6/2021) . We found that health care services usage by setting was 8% to 18% lower than the pre-pandemic level (Table) . Phase 1 had the largest decrease in utilization. In phase 3, utilization was still lower than the pre-pandemic level for most service types, except HOP visits and ASC procedures. We also found a large increase in telehealth visits, although the increase was not large enough to compensate for the decrease in in-person office visits.