Patients’ Satisfaction with and Preference for Telehealth Visits
Open accessAbstract
Background One-quarter of U.S. patients do not have a primary care provider or do not have complete access to one. Work and personal responsibilities also compete with finding convenient, accessible care. Telehealth services facilitate patients' access to care, but whether patients are satisfied with telehealth is unclear.Objective We assessed patients' satisfaction with and preference for telehealth visits in a telehealth program at CVS MinuteClinics.Design Cross-sectional patient satisfaction survey.Participants Patients were aged ≥18 years, presented at a MinuteClinic offering telehealth in January-September 2014, had symptoms suitable for telehealth consultation, and agreed to a telehealth visit when the on-site practitioner was busy.Main measures Patients reported their age, gender, and whether they had health insurance and/or a primary care provider. Patients rated their satisfaction with seeing diagnostic images, hearing and seeing the remote practitioner, the assisting on-site nurse's capability, quality of care, convenience, and overall understanding. Patients ranked telehealth visits compared to traditional ones: better (defined as preferring telehealth), just as good (defined as liking telehealth), or worse. Predictors of preferring or liking telehealth were assessed via multivariate logistic regression.Key results In total, 1734 (54 %) of 3303 patients completed the survey: 70 % were women, and 41 % had no usual place of care. Between 94 and 99 % reported being "very satisfied" with all telehealth attributes. One-third preferred a telehealth visit to a traditional in-person visit. An additional 57 % liked telehealth. Lack of medical insurance increased the odds of preferring telehealth (OR = 0.83, 95 % CI, 0.72-0.97). Predictors of liking telehealth were female gender (OR = 1.68, 1.04-2.72) and being very satisfied with their overall understanding of telehealth (OR = 2.76, 1.84-4.15), quality of care received (OR = 2.34, 1.42-3.87), and telehealth's convenience (OR = 2.87, 1.09-7.94) CONCLUSIONS: Patients reported high satisfaction with their telehealth experience. Convenience and perceived quality of care were important to patients, suggesting that telehealth may facilitate access to care.
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The study was sponsored by CVS Health (Pharmacy).
“The study was sponsored by CVS Health (Pharmacy).”
From The Empirical Foundations of Telemedicine Interventions in Primary Care (2016) · cites this paper as [75]
In a U.S. survey of 1,734 respondents (response rate 54%) evaluating patient satisfaction with an online direct-to-patient telemedicine program in a pharmacy setting, 70% were women and 41% had no usual source of care.
“Seventy percent of the respondents were women, and 41% had no usual source of care.”
From The Empirical Foundations of Telemedicine Interventions in Primary Care (2016) · cites this paper as [75]
The low response rate of 54% in that survey means that these results may not be reliable.
“However, the low response of 54% means that these results may not be reliable.”
From The Empirical Foundations of Telemedicine Interventions in Primary Care (2016) · cites this paper as [75]
In that survey, the vast majority reported being satisfied with their experience, citing convenience and quality of care as their reasons.
“The vast majority reported being satisfied with their experience, citing convenience and quality of care as their reasons.”
From The Empirical Foundations of Telemedicine Interventions in Primary Care (2016) · cites this paper as [75]
Increased convenience as a driver of telemedicine use has been previously documented in the literature.
“This study revealed that one important driver of telemedicine use is increased convenience, which has been previously documented in the literature.”
From Telemedicine and virtual healthcare for survivors of sexual assault and intimate partner violence: A qualitative study (2024) · cites this paper as [28]
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- Authors
- Polinski, J. M., Barker, T., Gagliano, N., Sussman, A., Brennan, T. A., & Shrank, W. H.
- Affiliations
- CVS Health (United States) (US)
- Corresponding author
- Polinski, Jennifer M.
- Venue
- Journal of General Internal Medicine
- Published
- 2015-08-13
- Volume
- 31
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 269-275
- ISSN
- 0884-8734 (ISSN-L)
- 1525-1497
- PMC
- PMC4762824
- OpenAlex
- W2204320666
- Cited by
- 574
- References
- 24
- Citations by year
- 2026: 25 · 2025: 43 · 2024: 75 · 2023: 75 · 2022: 117 · 2021: 118 · 2020: 69 · 2019: 23 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 10.01
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Journal of General Internal Medicine (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Telemedicine and Telehealth Implementation
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Patient Satisfaction in Healthcare
- Social Sciences › Demography › Technology Use by Older Adults
- Keywords
- telemedicine, patient satisfaction, patient preferences, health care access, health insurance, convenience, quality of care, teleconsultation
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Pilot Projects, Patient Satisfaction, Telemedicine, Young Adult, Patient Preference
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