ArticleJournal of general internal medicine2026
Impact of State Telemedicine Policies on Substance Use Disorder Treatment During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Article in Journal of general internal medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
importanceThe COVID-19 pandemic disrupted traditional substance use disorder (SUD) treatment modalities, prompting innovative telemedicine solutions.
objectiveTo evaluate the association between state-level telemedicine policies and SUD treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic.
designAn augmented synthetic control analysis comparing changes in SUD treatment before and after the implementation of telemedicine policies in states that adopted these policies to changes in SUD treatment in comparison states without these policies from 2018 to 2022.
settingThis study utilized a comprehensive policy database merged with de-identified patient claims data from the OptumLabs® Data Warehouse.
participantsIndividuals aged 18 in only fully insured commercial, private plans subject to state insurance policies between January 2018 and December 2022. EXPOSURE: Combined implementation of three state telemedicine policies during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic (March-July 2020), including telemedicine coverage parity, telemedicine payment parity, and in-person relationship waivers. MAIN OUTCOMES: SUD treatment initiation and continuation, measured at the patient-month level and aggregated to the state-month level for analyses, with subgroup analyses for opioid use disorder (OUD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD) treatment.
resultsImplementation of the three policies was associated with average effects of less than 0.006 percentage points in the proportion of adults initiating SUD, AUD, or OUD treatment between March/April 2020 and December 2022, with confidence intervals not exceeding a 0.02 percentage point increase or decrease (p > 0.05). Among adults receiving treatment prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, these policies were associated with an estimated average change of less than 1.5 percentage points in the proportion of adults receiving SUD, AUD, or OUD treatment, with confidence intervals not exceeding a 4.5 percentage point increase or decrease (p > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Our study did not identify impacts of state telemedicine coverage parity, payment parity, and in-person relationship waiver policies on SUD treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Indexed as
Identifiers
41998264What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.