Telehealth Adoption Statistics (2026): How Much Care Is Delivered Virtually

Telehealth has settled rather than collapsed. In the second quarter of 2026, telehealth was 5.6% of commercial medical claim lines and 18.3% of commercially insured patients had a telehealth claim, according to FAIR Health. Trilliant Health puts telehealth at two-thirds of behavioral health visits, so the national average hides two very different markets.

Quick answer:

• Volume: 5.6% of commercial medical claim lines in Q2 2026 were telehealth, up a relative 1.8% from the prior quarter, per FAIR Health. Roughly one claim line in eighteen.
• People: 18.3% of commercially insured patients had a telehealth claim in Q2 2026. In traditional Medicare, 12.5% of eligible beneficiaries used telehealth in Q2 2025, per KFF.
• Concentration: mental health was 53.7% of telehealth diagnoses nationally and 70.9% among adults 19 to 30. Urban patients used telehealth at 18.5% against 10.2% rural.

Every figure below is named, dated and linked. Nothing here is modelled or projected.

The headline number: about one claim line in eighteen

The cleanest ongoing measure of virtual care volume is FAIR Health's Quarterly Telehealth Regional Tracker, whose second-quarter 2026 findings were released in September 2026. Nationally, telehealth accounted for 5.6% of medical claim lines, a relative increase of 1.8% from 5.5% in the first quarter. FAIR Health defines a claim line as an individual service or procedure listed on an insurance claim.

The regional picture is not uniform. Claim lines rose everywhere except the Northeast: a relative 0.3% in the Midwest, 1.8% in the South and 3.5% in the West, against a relative 1.4% decline in the Northeast.

Two caveats if you quote this number. The data represent the commercially insured population and exclude Medicare Fee-for-Service, Medicare Advantage and Medicaid, so it is not all of American healthcare. And a claim line is a service, not a visit: one office visit can generate several, so claim-line share and visit share are not interchangeable.

What it does tell you is that virtual care is now a permanent, measurable slice of outpatient volume. A practice that builds its schedule, consents and documentation around in-person visits only is building around roughly 94% of its work and improvising the rest.

How many people, not how many claims

Claim lines measure activity. Patient counts measure reach, and the two are drifting apart.

FAIR Health found that 18.3% of commercially insured patients had a telehealth claim in the second quarter of 2026, a relative decrease of 0.5% from 18.4% in the first quarter. It fell in the Midwest by a relative 1.6%, in the Northeast by 2.6% and in the South by 1.2%, and rose only in the West, by 3.1%.

Put the two side by side and you get the real story of 2026: slightly more telehealth services delivered to slightly fewer people.

The broader population picture comes from CDC. The National Center for Health Statistics report Declines in Telemedicine Use Among Adults: United States, 2021 and 2022, published June 20, 2024, drew on the National Health Interview Survey and found that the percentage of adults who used telemedicine in the previous 12 months fell from 37.0% in 2021 to 30.1% in 2022. The decline held across sex, income, education, region and urbanization level.

Within 2022, CDC recorded 33.8% of women against 26.3% of men, 26.1% of adults aged 18 to 29 against 30.6% of adults 65 and older, and 36.4% of adults with a college degree against 21.9% of adults without a high school diploma. It is the most recent CDC series of its kind and it covers 2022, so read it as a map of who reaches for virtual care, not a current headcount.

Medicare: the number that drives the policy fight

Medicare is where telehealth statistics turn into legislation, and KFF keeps the cleanest running account of it. Its explainer What to Know About Medicare Coverage of Telehealth, published March 19, 2026, reports that nearly half of eligible traditional Medicare beneficiaries, 46.7%, received at least one telehealth service in the second quarter of 2020, against just 6.9% in the first quarter of that year. By the second quarter of 2025, the most recent period with data, that had fallen to 12.5%.

KFF's framing is the one worth borrowing: use has declined steadily since early 2021 but remains nearly two times higher than pre-pandemic levels. Telehealth in Medicare did not revert. It reset at a higher floor.

The 2024 breakdowns show who is actually on the other end of the call. Telehealth use was higher among beneficiaries qualifying through end-stage renal disease, 37%, or long-term disability, 36%, than among those qualifying by age, 23%. Beneficiaries dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid used it at 35% against 23% for those not Medicaid eligible. Urban beneficiaries used it at 26% against 19% rural. By race and ethnicity, rates were highest among Asian and Pacific Islander beneficiaries at 30% and Hispanic beneficiaries at 29%.

The heaviest telehealth users in Medicare are the people for whom reaching a clinic is hardest. That is an argument about access, not convenience, and it is why the coverage calendar below carries weight.

Behavioral health is a different market entirely

If you average telehealth across all of medicine you will misjudge every specialty in it. Behavioral health is the clearest case.

Trilliant Health's 2026 Behavioral Health Report, released April 14, 2026, found that telehealth accounts for two-thirds of behavioral health visits. The same report found behavioral health utilization rose 62.6% between 2018 and 2024, reaching 1,346 visits per 1,000 people, with anxiety disorders showing both the highest utilization and the fastest growth at 89.3%.

FAIR Health's claims data agrees from the other direction. In the second quarter of 2026, mental health conditions were the top telehealth diagnostic category nationally and in every region, both overall and in every age group. Nationally the share of telehealth patients with a mental health diagnosis was 53.7%, and among adults aged 19 to 30 it was 70.9%. Psychotherapy ranked as the number two telehealth procedure category nationally and in every region, behind established patient office and other outpatient services.

Overweight and obesity is the category to watch. FAIR Health reports it moved from third to second nationally and in the Midwest and Northeast over the quarter, and entered the national top five in four age groups, 19 to 30, 31 to 40, 41 to 50 and 51 to 64, up from three.

There is no single telehealth adoption rate. There is a behavioral health rate near two-thirds, a weight-management rate climbing fast, and a general medical rate near one claim line in eighteen.

The gap that never closed

Telehealth was sold as the fix for rural access. The data say the opposite happened.

FAIR Health found that in the second quarter of 2026, 18.5% of patients in urban areas had a telehealth claim against 10.2% in rural areas, and the gap held nationally and in every region. Urban use fell a relative 0.6% over the quarter, rural use fell a relative 1.0%, so the gap widened slightly.

CDC's survey shows the same gradient. In 2022, telemedicine use fell at every step down the urbanization ladder: 34.2% in large central metropolitan areas, 29.6% in medium metropolitan, 23.4% in small metropolitan and 19.6% in noncore rural areas, a linear trend CDC records as statistically significant.

KFF names the likely cause plainly: disparities in access to broadband and other communication technologies, and notes that rural beneficiaries may lack the infrastructure for reliable video. That is why audio-only coverage matters more to them than to anyone else.

What is legally certain, and until when

Adoption statistics move when coverage rules move, so the dates below are part of the data.

Telehealth.HHS.gov, last updated February 5, 2026, states that recent legislation extended many Medicare telehealth flexibilities through December 31, 2027. Through that date: Medicare patients can receive non-behavioral telehealth in their home, there are no geographic restrictions on the originating site, all eligible Medicare providers can furnish telehealth, FQHCs and RHCs can serve as distant site providers for non-behavioral services, non-behavioral services can be delivered audio-only, and the in-person visit requirement around behavioral telehealth is waived.

A separate set of provisions is permanent. For behavioral and mental telehealth: no geographic restriction on the originating site, the patient's home as an eligible site, audio-only delivery, and FQHCs, RHCs, marriage and family therapists and mental health counselors as distant site providers.

KFF adds the risk that HHS does not: these flexibilities have lapsed before. Coverage of many telehealth services briefly lapsed during the government shutdown that began October 1, 2025, and was retroactively reinstated on November 12. If you are planning virtual capacity into 2028, the behavioral health provisions are the ones you can build on without a legislative bet.

What the numbers change about buying software

Three findings should change a software decision. Virtual visits are a steady 5% to 6% minority of general medical volume, so telehealth in a separate tool means a separate login for every twentieth visit. Behavioral health runs at two-thirds virtual, so there the video tool is the clinic. And the visit is half the work: the note, the claim and the eligibility check have to land on the same record, or saved travel time is spent re-keying.

One axis below, ranked: how much of a telehealth visit stays inside the patient record without a second system. It is not a quality ranking. Every price is taken from the vendor's own linked pricing page and was checked in September 2026.

One currency warning before you read the last column. Every figure here is in US dollars except Jane App, which publishes its pricing in Canadian dollars only and shows no US dollar equivalent. Jane's figures are marked CAD and are not comparable at face value with the rest of the table.

Record integration	Platform	How video works	Telehealth limits today	Pricing as published today
1	Ona	Encrypted browser video built on LiveKit, opened in one click from the consultation record; waiting room with pre-flight checks; patients join by emailed link with no app or account; consent-gated audio recording drafts the note in the same chart	1:1 visits only, no group visits or shared medical appointments; full-video recording is not the default	$130 per practitioner seat, $45 per staff seat, monthly, telehealth on every plan, 10% off billed annually
2	Jane App	Online Appointments (1:1 telehealth) included in every plan, inside the clinic's charting and scheduling	Group telehealth is a paid add-on; unlimited AI scribe is a paid add-on, with 5 free notes per practitioner per month included on every plan; insurance billing is a paid add-on on Practice and Thrive only, and applies to the whole account, at CAD $20 per month plus CAD $5 per full-time and CAD $2.50 per part-time practitioner; the entry Balance plan is one practitioner profile capped at 20 appointments a month	Published in Canadian dollars only, no US dollar price listed: CAD $54 Balance, CAD $79 Practice, CAD $99 Thrive, monthly. Extra practitioners on Practice cost CAD $35 full-time and CAD $17.50 part-time, and on Thrive CAD $40 and CAD $20. Group telehealth and unlimited AI scribe are CAD $15 each per opted-in practitioner
3	SimplePractice	Telehealth included across plans, tied to the client record; group telehealth highlighted on Plus	Note Taker and ePrescribe are paid add-ons; scope is oriented to health and wellness professionals	Solo Starter $49, Essential $79, Plus $99 monthly, currently 50% off for the first 3 months at $24.50, $39.50 and $49.50; Note Taker add-on $35, ePrescribe add-on $49 plus an $89 one-time setup fee
4	Healthie	Individual telehealth included from Core up, delivered through a HIPAA-compliant Zoom integration at no extra cost; group telehealth and webinars from Plus	Video runs through an integrated third party rather than natively in the chart; claims and e-prescribing are paid add-ons	Core $19.99, Essentials $49.99, Plus $129.99, Group $149.99+ monthly, or $18, $45, $115 and $135+ billed annually; Group adds $50 per clinician; DoseSpot $40 per clinician monthly; ClaimMD from $30 monthly
5	Doxy.me	Standalone telehealth: virtual waiting room, patient queue, shared rooms, automated notetaking and session summaries	No EHR, charting or billing on the platform, so the chart, the claim and the schedule live elsewhere	Free plan for providers getting started; Premium plan $29 per user per month, billed annually

Ona is a general ambulatory EHR that scales from solo clinicians through multi-location groups to enterprise systems. Its own site says it plainly: "Ona scales from solo clinics to enterprise systems." The honest exclusion is inpatient and hospital work, not practice size. Telehealth is on every plan at no separate charge, the ambient scribe drafts the note from the recorded call against your own template, and insurance eligibility and claims run off that signed note.

Frequently asked questions

How much care is delivered by telehealth in 2026?

For the commercially insured population, telehealth was 5.6% of medical claim lines in the second quarter of 2026, up a relative 1.8% from 5.5% in the first quarter, according to FAIR Health's Quarterly Telehealth Regional Tracker released in September 2026. That is roughly one in eighteen claim lines. The share differs enormously by specialty: Trilliant Health's 2026 Behavioral Health Report, released April 14, 2026, found telehealth accounts for two-thirds of behavioral health visits.

What percentage of patients use telehealth?

18.3% of commercially insured patients had a telehealth claim in the second quarter of 2026, down a relative 0.5% from 18.4% in the first quarter, per FAIR Health. In Medicare, KFF reported on March 19, 2026 that 12.5% of eligible traditional Medicare beneficiaries received a telehealth service in the second quarter of 2025. In the general adult population, CDC's National Health Interview Survey put telemedicine use in the past 12 months at 30.1% of adults in 2022, down from 37.0% in 2021.

Is telehealth use still growing or declining?

Neither. It is flat at a level far above 2019. FAIR Health's most recent quarter shows claim lines up a relative 1.8% while the share of patients using telehealth fell a relative 0.5%, which means slightly more virtual visits spread across slightly fewer people. KFF describes Medicare telehealth use as having declined steadily since early 2021 while remaining nearly two times higher than pre-pandemic levels.

What share of telehealth visits are mental health?

Mental health conditions were the top telehealth diagnostic category nationally and in every region in the second quarter of 2026, at 53.7% of commercially insured telehealth patients, rising to 70.9% among adults aged 19 to 30, per FAIR Health. Psychotherapy ranked as the number two telehealth procedure category nationally and in every region.

Is telehealth bigger in cities or rural areas?

Cities, by a wide margin, which is the opposite of what telehealth was originally supposed to fix. FAIR Health found 18.5% of urban patients had a telehealth claim in the second quarter of 2026 against 10.2% of rural patients. CDC's survey shows the same gradient: 34.2% of adults in large central metropolitan areas used telemedicine in 2022 against 19.6% in noncore rural areas.

Will Medicare still cover telehealth in 2026?

Yes. Telehealth.HHS.gov, last updated February 5, 2026, states that Medicare telehealth flexibilities including home as originating site, no geographic restrictions, audio-only coverage and all eligible distant site providers run through December 31, 2027. Behavioral and mental telehealth is permanent: no geographic restriction, the home as originating site, audio-only delivery, and FQHCs and RHCs as distant site providers.

Sources

• FAIR Health, Quarterly Telehealth Regional Tracker, Q2 2026, released in September 2026.
• CDC, National Center for Health Statistics, Report No. 205, "Declines in Telemedicine Use Among Adults: United States, 2021 and 2022," June 20, 2024.
• KFF, "What to Know About Medicare Coverage of Telehealth," March 19, 2026, citing the CMS Medicare Telehealth Trends Report through June 30, 2025.
• Telehealth.HHS.gov, "Telehealth policy updates," February 5, 2026.
• Trilliant Health, 2026 Behavioral Health Report, April 14, 2026.

Next step

Work out your own number. Count last month's virtual visits, then count how many needed a second tool to become a signed note and a submitted claim. That second figure is what one record removes. Book a 15-minute demo and bring a real telehealth week, or start the 14-day free trial, full access, no credit card.