The goal of this project was to generate a multi-state, baseline description of telehealth services provided to Medicaid enrollees in rural and urban settings. Specific objectives were to assess: 1) the volume of telehealth services/utilization by rural providers and for rural beneficiaries; 2) the types of services for which telehealth is being used; and 3) variations in the use, volume, and types of telehealth services across rural geographies. The project also tested the feasibility of using Medicaid Analytic eXtract (MAX) data to evaluate the effects of Medicaid telehealth policies on rural telehealth use and on the accessibility and quality of care delivered to rural Medicaid populations. This study used data from the MAX for 2011. We provided descriptive statistics on Medicaid telehealth users, services, and providers in both rural and urban contexts. Bivariate analyses were conducted to determine whether the volume of Medicaid telehealth use, as measured by numbers of users and claims per enrollee, differed across levels of rurality and Census Bureau regions.

Publications

• Patterns of Telehealth Use Among Rural Medicaid Beneficiaries
  Journal Article
  Rural Telehealth Research Center
  Date: 10/2018
  This study uses data from the 2011 Medicaid Analytic eXtract (MAX) to examine the prevalence of telehealth use among rural and urban Medicaid beneficiaries, characteristics of telehealth users, types of telehealth services provided, and diagnoses associated with telehealth use.