Physician Telemedicine or Telehealth Technology Use

Use the drop-down menu to show data for subgroups of physicians within the selected group. Hover the mouse over a bar to see additional information about a specific estimate.

Technical Notes

• In Periods 3 and 4 of 2020 NAMCS, 422 out of 774 eligible physicians responded to the NAMCS Physician Induction Interview, for a response rate of 54.5%. In periods 1 and 2 of 2021 NAMCS, 407 out of 851 eligible physicians responded, for a response rate of 47.8%. In periods 3 and 4 of the 2021 NAMCS, 337 out of 631 eligible physicians responded, for a response rate of 53.4%.
• In the 2020 and 2021 NAMCS, physicians were asked about telemedicine technology use before and after March 2020. Therefore, physicians in P3 and P4 of 2020 were combined with those in P1, P2, P3, and P4 of 2021 to assess telemedicine use measures, for a total sample of 1,166 respondents.
• Physicians who responded that they “don’t know” if their office used telemedicine technology before March 2020 were excluded from both measures because they were not subsequently asked if their office started using telemedicine technology during or after March 2020 (3.5%). No physicians were excluded from estimates due to missing data.
• Estimates are weighted and are nationally representative.
• Data represent physicians, not physician offices.
• All estimates shown were assessed against the NCHS Data Presentation Standards for Proportions. Estimates that did not meet these reliability standards are still shown but displayed in an alternate color according to the legend in the dashboard.

Data Source

The preliminary data presented are from the National Center for Health Statistics’ 2020 and 2021 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) Physician Induction Interview. For general details on NAMCS, visit https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/ahcd/about_ahcd.htm, and for specific details about the NAMCS Physician Induction Interview, see below.

Definitions

Measures

Survey questions used to develop the measures displayed in the above dashboard include:

Did physicians’ offices use telemedicine or telehealth technologies before March 2020, pre-pandemic onset?

• Estimates show the percentage of physicians responding “yes” to the following survey question:
  • “During January and February 2020, was your office using telemedicine or telehealth technologies (for example, audio with video, web videoconference) to assess, diagnose, monitor, or treat patients?”
• Physicians who responded that they “don’t know” if their office used telemedicine before March 2020 were excluded because they were not subsequently asked if their office started using telemedicine during or after March 2020.

Did physicians’ offices use telemedicine or telehealth technologies during or after March 2020, post-pandemic onset?

• Estimates show the percentage of physicians responding “yes” to one or both of the following survey questions:
  • “During January and February 2020, was your office using telemedicine or telehealth technologies (for example, audio with video, web videoconference) to assess, diagnose, monitor, or treat patients?”
  • [If “no” to the above question], “After February 2020, has your office started using telemedicine or telehealth technologies?”
• Physicians who responded that they “don’t know” if their office used telemedicine before March 2020 were excluded because they were not subsequently asked if their office started using telemedicine during or after March 2020.

Groups

Measures are stratified by the following characteristics:

Office type:

• Solo Practice—Physicians responding that they work in a solo practice.
• Group Practice—Physicians responding that they work with other physicians, such as in a partnership or a group practice.

Owner type:

• Physician or physician group—Physicians responding that they work at an office owned by a physician or a physician group.
• Other—Physicians responding that they work at an office that is owned by an entity, such as an insurance company, health plan, hospital, health center, or other health care corporation.

Specialty type (as described in NCHS’ NAMCS documentation, pages 111-113):

• Primary care—Physicians responding that their specialty is primary care.
• Surgical—Physicians responding that their specialty is surgical.
• Medical—Physicians responding that their specialty is medical.

Urbanicity of office location (based on NCHS’ Urban-Rural Classification Scheme for Counties):

• Large metro area—Physicians’ offices in metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) with 1 million people or more.
• Medium/small metro area—Physicians’ offices in MSAs with less than 1 million people.
• Nonmetro area—Physician’s offices in micropolitan statistical areas (urban clusters with a population of at least 10,000 but less than 50,000) or noncore areas (everything else considered nonmicropolitan).

Survey Design and Sampling

NAMCS is an annual survey of 3,000 physicians working in nonfederally employed, office-based settings in the 50 U.S. states or Washington, D.C., sampled from the American Medical Association and the American Osteopathic Association master files. Physicians working in specialties of anesthesiology, radiology, or pathology are not eligible to be sampled. Sampled physicians who had retired or were aged 85 or over; were a resident, intern, or fellow; were not principally engaged in patient care activities at the time of the interview; could not be contacted; or were not providing care in an office-based setting were not eligible to complete NAMCS.

NAMCS consists of two parts: 1) a Physician Induction Interview with eligible responding physicians, and 2) an abstraction of patient visits from those physicians. To provide representative data from across a survey year, the physician sample is divided into 52 subsamples, which are then randomly assigned to the 52 weeks of the survey year. These weekly subsamples are also grouped into four interview periods, with about 750 physicians in each period. Physicians are contacted to complete the Physician Induction Interview within a specific date range for their interview period, and then provide a sample of visits for abstraction from the reporting week to which they were assigned. Details regarding interview and reporting periods for the 2020 and 2021 NAMCS are shown below in the Table.

COVID-19-related questions were first introduced in the third interview period of the 2020 NAMCS Physician Induction Interview and were also asked of physicians in the 2021 survey. Because of COVID-19, data collection was delayed and some of the interview dates for the 2020 NAMCS Physician Induction Interview occurred in 2021. Additionally, due to safety concerns and logistical challenges related to COVID-19, data abstraction was cancelled for periods 2, 3, and 4 of the 2020 NAMCS and all of the 2021 NAMCS.

Survey Weighting

Physicians were weighted according to their specialty and region. Weights were adjusted using multipurpose iterative proportional fitting, a technique that simultaneously performs calibration, nonresponse adjustment, and weight trimming. Records from periods 3 and 4 of 2020 were combined, records from periods 1 and 2 of 2021 were combined, and records from periods 3 and 4 of 2021 were combined to produce three sets of preliminary weights.  Data from 2020 and 2021 were then combined to produce nationally representative estimates of telemedicine or telehealth technology use. Estimates on this page are being published prior to final weighting to provide timely access to COVID information.

Suggested Citation

National Center for Health Statistics. 2020–2021 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey Physician Induction Interview. Telemedicine or telehealth technology use in office-based settings during the COVID-19 pandemic: United States. Generated interactively: .

Send comments and questions to ambcare@cdc.gov.