Trends in outpatient care utilization for patients with established atrial fibrillation before and after the Covid-19 pandemic: a nationwide analysis of claims data.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate trends in outpatient visits among Medicare beneficiaries with established AF before and after the pandemic and to investigate differences in outpatient care utilization patterns based on baseline utilization levels.

RESULTS

We analyzed 2018-2022 Medicare data to assess outpatient visit trends among 124,483 beneficiaries with atrial fibrillation (AF), categorizing them into quartiles based on pre-pandemic in-person visit frequency. We found that in-person visits declined while telehealth use increased across all groups during the pandemic. After the pandemic, total visits remained below pre-pandemic levels for higher-utilizing groups after the pandemic.