Effect of telemedicine use on medical spending and health care utilization among patients with gastrointestinal cancer

• Published in: Journal of gastrointestinal surgery 2024-09, Vol.28 (9), p.1456-1462
• Main Authors: Endo, Yutaka, Woldesenbet, Selamawit, Tsilimigras, Diamantis I., Munir, Muhammad Musaab, Khalil, Mujtaba, Khan, Muhammad Muntazir Mehdi, Altaf, Abdullah, Rashid, Zayed, Catalano, Giovanni, Chatzipanagiotou, Odysseas P., Pawlik, Timothy M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Gastrointestinal cancer; IBM MarketScan; Telemedicine
• ISSN: 1091-255X; 1873-4626; 1873-4626
• DOI: 10.1016/j.gassur.2024.06.009

We sought to assess the impact of telemedicine on healthcare utilization and medical expenditures among patients with a diagnosis of gastrointestinal (GI) cancer. Patients with newly diagnosed GI cancer from 2013 to 2020 were identified from the IBM MarketScan database (IBM Watson Health) . Healthcare utilization, total medical outpatient insurance payments within 1 year post-diagnosis, and out-of-pocket (OOP) expenses among telemedicine users and non-users were assessed after propensity score matching (PSM). Among the 32,677 patients with GI cancer (esophageal, n = 1862, 5.7%; gastric, n = 2009, 6.1%; liver, n = 2929, 9.0%; bile duct, n = 597, 1.8%; pancreas, n = 3083, 9.4%; colorectal, n = 22,197, 67.9%), a total of 3063 (9.7%) utilized telemedicine. After PSM (telemedicine users, n = 3064; non-users, n = 3064), telemedicine users demonstrated a higher frequency of clinic visits (median: 5.0 days, IQR 4.0–7.0 vs non-users: 2.0 days, IQR 2.0–3.0, P