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The State of Telehealth in 2025

by | Apr 3, 2025 | Healthcare

Reading Time: 8 minutes

Five years ago, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, telemedicine was thrown into the spotlight. Prior to the pandemic, the technology had some difficulties gaining traction. With regulatory and reimbursement hurdles to overcome, as well as cultural factors that influenced perception of the technology (lack of familiarity or a belief that it didn’t provide quality healthcare), few people used telehealth options.

Then 2020 came and people were forced to use telehealth. They quickly found that it provided a convenient and safe way to receive care during the pandemic. Once they used the technology, they found many of their previous beliefs about it were unfounded.

Now that we are five years past the pandemic, I wanted to examine where telehealth is today. Is it continuing to grow? What challenges does it still face? Let’s examine.

Current landscape

Before to the pandemic, telehealth adoption was relatively low, but that changed dramatically once people were prompted to use virtual services out of necessity. Surveys reveal a significant jump in usage and satisfaction levels, suggesting that telehealth will continue to have a place in modern healthcare.

  • Use of telehealth: According to a 2024 survey conducted on behalf of hims & hers, only 10% of Americans had participated in a telehealth visit in June 2019. By April 2020, that number was up to 29%, and in August 2020, it was up to 43%. Today 54% of Americans have had a telehealth visit, with 1 in 6 having had four or more. Among those who have used telehealth, 89% say they were satisfied with their most recent visit, demonstrating the benefit of the technology.
  • Future growth: While telehealth experienced an immediate spike during the pandemic, it is still continuing to grow. Analyst firm Grand View Research projects the market will grow 24% yearly until 2030, with McKinsey estimating that $250B of the healthcare market can potentially be virtualized.
  • Common uses of telehealth: Telehealth is currently used for everything from routine primary care consults and urgent care visits to ongoing support for chronic disease management through remote monitoring. In addition, it plays a key role in delivering mental and behavioral health services, where patients can access therapy sessions and medication management remotely. By reducing travel time, enabling ongoing data sharing, and broadening access to care providers, telehealth helps improve efficiency, affordability, and patient engagement across diverse healthcare needs.

 

Source: https://pos.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/hims-hers-National-Survey-Memo.pdf

Technology innovations

Continuing advancements in technology have made telehealth more practical and accessible than ever before. From remote patient monitoring to AI-driven triage and seamless EHR integration, these innovations are shaping how both providers and patients experience healthcare.

  • Remote patient monitoring (RPM): In 2025, remote patient monitoring has evolved far beyond simply taking vitals at home; it now employs advanced wearable technologies that track chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and cardiac issues in real time. By continuously collecting data, these devices offer a comprehensive view of a patient’s health between clinical visits. Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence (AI), the collected information is quickly analyzed, enabling healthcare teams to detect anomalies early and intervene proactively.
  • AI and machine learning: AI and machine learning have become integral to telehealth ecosystems, with chatbots and intelligent triage tools now acting as a first touchpoint for patients seeking care. These AI-driven systems gather initial details about symptoms and medical history, offering basic guidance or next steps, whether that be scheduling a virtual visit, recommending self-care strategies, or escalating to emergency services. By automating the front-end screening process, providers can reduce wait times and streamline clinical workflows, ensuring that more severe or complex cases get prioritized attention.
  • Interoperability and EHR integration: Seamless interoperability between telehealth platforms and electronic health records (EHRs) has dramatically improved care coordination. Providers can now conduct virtual visits without any of the data “silos” that once hindered communication, allowing real-time access to lab results, imaging studies, and patient histories. For patients, this unified approach means fewer requests for duplicate information and smoother transitions between different levels of care, ultimately creating a more cohesive and user-friendly healthcare experience.

Provider and patient satisfaction

Telehealth has brought about significant changes for both healthcare providers and patients since 2020. It’s reshaped how professionals work and improved the patient experience by offering greater convenience and broader access to care.

  • Provider burnout vs. flexibility: Telehealth offers a unique blend of benefits and challenges when it comes to provider satisfaction, and its growth since 2020 has only magnified both sides of the equation. On one hand, virtual consultations can reduce clinician burnout by cutting down on commute times, allowing more control over scheduling, and lowering some of the overhead costs associated with brick-and-mortar practices. On the other hand, the rapid expansion of telehealth—and new regulatory expectations that emerged during the pandemic—can introduce added complexity if not managed well. Insufficient training, complex user interfaces, and unresolved administrative burdens—such as navigating updated insurance policies or working with multiple virtual platforms—may negate telehealth’s potential advantages. Fortunately, many health systems have learned from the challenges of 2020 and have since invested in streamlined workflows, user-friendly software, and robust clinician support. As a result, telehealth today is often better integrated into standard care pathways, with more providers seeing it as a genuine solution to burnout rather than an added stressor.
  • Patient-centered care: From the patient’s perspective, telehealth often aligns closely with the principles of patient-centered care, and improvements since 2020 have made virtual visits a more seamless part of everyday healthcare. By eliminating the need to travel or sit in crowded waiting rooms, telehealth significantly improves accessibility—especially for elderly, mobility-limited, or immunocompromised people who found in-person care particularly challenging during the pandemic. Beyond mere convenience, virtual visits can enhance the overall patient experience by allowing family members to join from different locations and by enabling real-time monitoring and follow-ups through improved digital tools. As public awareness and comfort with telehealth have grown since 2020, many patients now view virtual consultations as a natural alternative or complement to in-person appointments.

Policy and security

Government policies and regulations have been instrumental in shaping telehealth’s rapid expansion, easing restrictions on cross-border licensing and offering more comprehensive reimbursement models. At the same time, the need for robust privacy, data security, and clear regulatory guidelines has grown, ensuring telehealth remains both safe and widely accessible.

  • Cross-border licensing and reimbursement: Efforts to relax cross-border or cross-state licensing requirements have gained momentum since 2020. In tandem, reimbursement models for virtual care have continued to evolve and, in many cases, now approach parity with in-person services. For Medicare beneficiaries in the U.S., recent federal policy updates have extended telehealth coverage for non-behavioral/mental services provided in a patient’s home through September 30, 2025—eliminating previous geographic and originating-site restrictions. These expansions also include permanent coverage of behavioral/mental health telehealth services in the home and allow Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and Rural Health Clinics (RHCs) to serve as distant-site providers for certain telehealth services well into 2025 and beyond. As a result, providers in rural or underserved communities face fewer financial and logistical hurdles, and patients can access a broader range of specialists regardless of location. While cross-state licensure is still governed by individual state boards, the continued push for telehealth-friendly compacts and interstate agreements reflects a major shift toward a more flexible and interconnected healthcare landscape.
  • Privacy and data security: As telehealth grows in both scope and scale, safeguarding sensitive patient data is a top concern. Clinicians frequently rely on video conferencing platforms, remote patient monitoring devices, and cloud-based systems that collectively generate large volumes of health information. This reality has underscored the need for robust encryption, multi-factor authentication, and secure data storage to prevent unauthorized access or breaches. In addition, verifying patient identity remotely has become a key area of focus, particularly for prescribing controlled substances—an area in which new federal rules are tightening compliance requirements.
  • Regulatory clarity: A crucial driver behind telehealth’s momentum over the last five years is the gradual emergence of clearer regulations around virtual care. Temporary policies enacted in response to the pandemic have now been extended in many cases, offering greater certainty to both providers and patients. For example, in-person visit requirements for Medicare behavioral/mental telehealth services have been deferred until late 2025 or early 2026, removing a significant access barrier for individuals who struggle with travel. Marriage and family therapists, as well as mental health counselors, are now permanently allowed to serve as Medicare distant-site providers. These clarifications reflect the broader governmental commitment to providing consistent guidelines around telehealth, paving the way for long-term integration of virtual services into standard healthcare delivery.

Conclusion

Telehealth in 2025 stands at the intersection of rapid technological advancement, more flexible regulatory frameworks, and the growing recognition that virtual care can be just as effective – and in some cases, even more effective – than traditional in-person visits for many health needs.

Looking ahead, the challenge will be to sustain this momentum and make telehealth even more equitable, secure, and accessible. Continued investments in cybersecurity, user training, and intuitive platform design will help maintain patient confidence and provider adoption. As telehealth becomes more deeply interwoven into our health systems, we can expect to see more evidence-based guidelines for its use, further policy refinements, and an ever-expanding suite of digital tools that empower both clinicians and patients. Ultimately, the progress made since 2020 has laid a strong foundation for telehealth’s future—one where remote care is not just an alternative, but a primary avenue for reaching better health outcomes worldwide.

 

Kathy Sucich
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