Table 2.

Relative changes in medical costs and health care utilization among individuals with HD among telehealth users and telehealth nonusers (adjusted).^a

Variables	Total costs, $	No. of ED visits	No. of inpatient admissions	No. of pharmacy prescriptions	Average no. of days of drug supply	ED visit costs, $	Inpatient admission costs, $	Outpatient costs, $	Pharmacy costs, $
Diff-in-diff	−1814*** (−2732 to −895.8)	−0.0886*** (−0.110 to −0.0675)	−0.0324*** (−0.0396 to −0.0252)	0.514** (0.126–0.903)	0.773*** (0.406–1.139)	−208.8*** (−272.0 to −145.6)	−1574*** (−2062 to −1085)	−815.8* (−1448 to −183.3)	838.1*** (520.3 to 1156)
Mean telehealth nonusers prea	$10 976	0.392	0.101	11.34	24.96	$724.4	$3939	$3928	$1865
Mean telehealth users preb	$17 224	0.548	0.130	19.50	26.31	$1148	$5493	$5621	$4243
Diff—prec	$6248	0.157	0.0293	8.165	1.350	$423.8	$1554	$1693	$2379
Mean telehealth nonusers posta	$11 301	0.324	0.0836	10.82	27.74	$583.8	$3534	$4253	$2360
Mean telehealth users postb	$15 735	0.392	0.0804	19.50	29.87	$798.8	$3514	$5130	$5577
Diff—postc	$4434	0.0680	−0.00314d	8.680	2.123	$215	−$19.98	$877	$3217

Abbreviations: diff-in-diff, difference-in-differences estimates; ED, emergency department; HD, heart disease.

Of the 70 041 individuals with HD (Appendix Figure S1), 21 598 (30.8%) individuals had any telehealth during the stay-at-home order periods. All estimates came from difference-in-differences models, adjusted for age group, sex, urban/rural, census region of individuals’ place of residence, COVID-19 infection status during the stay-at-home order and subsequent periods, number of in-person outpatient visits during the stay-at-home order period, and comorbidities. The difference-in-differences estimates are the differences in means between telehealth users and telehealth nonusers in the pre– and post–stay-at-home order periods. 95% CIs are in parentheses. All estimates are per patient per year. All of the original coefficients from the difference-in-difference models are shown in Appendix Table S7.

^***P < .001;

^**P < .01;

^*P < .05.

^aMean telehealth nonusers pre/post indicates the average of outcomes in the pre– and post–stay-at-home order period (March–June 2020) among telehealth nonusers.

^bMean telehealth users pre/post indicates the average of outcomes in the pre– and post–stay-at-home order period among telehealth users.

^cDiff—pre/post indicates the differences in the average of outcomes between telehealth users and telehealth nonusers in pre– and post–telehealth use during the stay-at-home order periods.

^dNegative average values are adjusted averages of the outcomes after controlling for the list of control variables. Unadjusted estimates are all positive and available in Appendix Table S5.