Telehealth Expansion and Medicare Beneficiaries' Care Quality and Access.

Importance: Understanding the association of telehealth use with health care outcomes is fundamental to determining whether telehealth waivers implemented during the COVID-19 public health emergency should be made permanent. The current literature has yielded inconclusive findings owing to its focus on select states, practices, or health care systems.

Objective: To estimate the association of telehealth use with outcomes for all Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) beneficiaries by comparing hospital service areas (HSAs) with different levels of telehealth use.