(HealthDay News) — Virtual care with an outside physician is associated with more emergency department visits, compared with virtual visits with a regular care physician, according to a study published online Dec. 27 in JAMA Network Open.
Lauren Lapointe-Shaw, MD, PhD, from University Health Network in Toronto, and colleagues investigated whether there was a difference in subsequent emergency department use between patients who had a virtual visit with their own family physician versus those who had virtual visits with an outside physician. The analysis included 5.2 million individuals with a family physician and virtual visit (April 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022).
The researchers found that when propensity score matching those with a personal versus outside physician, those who saw an outside physician were 66% more likely to visit an emergency department within seven days of the virtual visit versus those who virtually saw their own physician (3.3 versus 2.0%; risk difference, 1.3%; relative risk, 1.66). The risk was even greater for patients with definite direct-to-consumer telemedicine visits versus patients with own physician visits (risk difference, 4.1%; relative risk, 2.99).
“These findings suggest that primary care virtual visits may be best used within an existing clinical relationship,” the authors write.
