Ritzwoller DP, Goodrich GW, Tavel HM, Odelberg MR, Davis TL, Gander JC, McCracken CE, Weinfield NS, Roblin DW. Patient Factors Associated With Use of Adult Primary Care and Virtual Visits During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Med Care 2023;
61:S12-S20. [PMID:
36893414 PMCID:
PMC9994567 DOI:
10.1097/mlr.0000000000001792]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/11/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND
The delivery of adult primary care (APC) shifted from predominately in-person to modes of virtual care during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is unclear how these shifts impacted the likelihood of APC use during the pandemic, or how patient characteristics may be associated with the use of virtual care.
METHODS
A retrospective cohort study using person-month level datasets from 3 geographically disparate integrated health care systems was conducted for the observation period of January 1, 2020, through June 30, 2021. We estimated a 2-stage model, first adjusting for patient-level sociodemographic, clinical, and cost-sharing factors, using generalized estimating equations with a logit distribution, along with a second-stage multinomial generalized estimating equations model that included an inverse propensity score treatment weight to adjust for the likelihood of APC use. Factors associated with APC use and virtual care use were separately assessed for the 3 sites.
RESULTS
Included in the first-stage models were datasets with total person-months of 7,055,549, 11,014,430, and 4,176,934, respectively. Older age, female sex, greater comorbidity, and Black race and Hispanic ethnicity were associated with higher likelihood of any APC use in any month; measures of greater patient cost-sharing were associated with a lower likelihood. Conditional on APC use, older age, and adults identifying as Black, Asian, or Hispanic were less likely to use virtual care.
CONCLUSIONS
As the transition in health care continues to evolve, our findings suggest that to ensure vulnerable patient groups receive high quality health care, outreach interventions to reduce barriers to virtual care use may be warranted.
Collapse