Healthcare Professionals and the Impact of COVID-19: A Comparative Study of Revenue and Utilization, A FAIR Health Brief, June 10, 2020
In April 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare professional services declined 68 percent in utilization and 48 percent in revenue based on total estimated in-network amounts compared to April 2019 nationally. In the Northeast, the region hit hardest at that time by the pandemic, professionals experienced particularly sharp drops in utilization (80 percent) and revenue (79 percent) in April 2020. These are among the findings of FAIR Health’s third COVID-19 study, Healthcare Professionals and the Impact of COVID-19: A Comparative Study of Revenue and Utilization.
During March and April 2020, deferral of elective procedures and many routine in-person medical visits imposed a financial burden on healthcare providers and caused changes to their practices, such as a new emphasis on telehealth. To study these issues, FAIR Health drew on its repository of private claims data to analyze, on a monthly basis, changes in utilization and estimated in-network reimbursement amounts for professionals in the first four months of 2020 as compared to the same months in 2019 (adjusted by Consumer Price Index). The second part of the study focused on seven specialties: cardiology, dermatology, oral surgery, gastroenterology, orthopedics, pediatric primary care and adult primary care. For each specialty, FAIR Health analyzed changes in utilization and estimated in-network reimbursement amounts in the first four months of 2020 as compared to the same months in 2019, as well as changes in the five most common procedures in the first four months of 2020. Among the findings:
FAIR Health President Robin Gelburd stated: “As with past studies in our COVID-19 series, we again use FAIR Health’s vast data repository to illuminate the impact of the pandemic. We hope this report will be useful to stakeholders throughout the healthcare sector, including providers, payors, policy makers and researchers.”
This is the third in a series of briefs released by FAIR Health on the COVID-19 pandemic. The first brief examined projected US costs for COVID-19 patients requiring inpatient stays, and the second the impact of the pandemic on hospitals and health systems.
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