Assessing Lower-Than-Expected Health Care Utilization Trends in Early 2021

As health care utilization experienced marked declines in 2020 due to COVID-19, there were hopeful expectations from the medical community that routine care would rebound or even increase in 2021 to make up for the pandemic.

However, according to a recent study by the Epic Health Research Network and Kaiser Family Foundation, findings indicate that routine medical care and hospital admissions remained below expected levels in the early months of 2021, marking the second consecutive year for such results.

On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we speak with Jackie Gerhart, MD, family medicine physician at Epic and lead clinician on the study, who addressed several potential implicating factors of the study findings and the adverse impact that continued forgone medical care may have on public health in the near future.

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