BACKGROUND: Telemedicine can increase care access and may be particularly helpful for rural patients. We sought to conduct a geospatial analysis of telemedicine physicians in the United States with attention to urban-rural and specialty-level differences.
METHODS: We used the Doctors and Clinicians national downloadable file. We assessed urban-rural differences in telemedicine physician density, categorized by Rural-Urban Continuum Codes. We analyzed telemedicine physician distribution using spatial clustering and choropleth graphs.
RESULTS: Our cohort comprised 660,537 physicians, of whom 136,462 (20.7%) offered telemedicine services. Physicians offering telemedicine services were less likely to practice in rural environments (p-value < 0.001) than nontelemedicine physicians. There were clusters of low telemedicine physician density in the South.
DISCUSSION: Telemedicine physicians were less likely to practice in rural areas, which may exacerbate health care disparities. Targeted interventions to increase telemedicine accessibility in rural and underserved areas should be pursued.
Geospatial analysis of telemedicine physicians in the United States
Telemedicine and e-Health [Epub 2025 Jun 26]. doi: 10.1089/tmj.2025.0160.