A newly released report by MDH’s Health Economics Program (HEP) describes the impact of the 2021 Minnesota Telehealth Act (Laws of Minnesota 2021, chapter 7, article 6), which expanded access to telehealth in Minnesota and extended payment parity to include audio-only telehealth visits. The report recommends supporting the broad availability and use of telehealth as a tool to deliver health care services and summarizes findings on health care access, quality and outcomes, satisfaction, costs, and equity. It includes nine recommendations for continuing and strengthening the availability and accessibility of telehealth in Minnesota.
The MN Electronic Health Records Consortium contributed Supplement B to the report. It uses electronic health record data to analyze outpatient use of telehealth and prevalence of audio-only and audio-visual telehealth use from 2018 to 2022, as well as telehealth's impact on quality of care.
The report and its supplements are available at Minnesota Study of Telehealth Publications - MN Dept. of Health (state.mn.us).