2021 Hospital Visit Volumes Expected to Stay Low

Visits stagnated below pre-COVID-19 levels in the last 25 weeks of 2020 and will likely stay that way throughout 2021.

There's a "new volume baseline" for hospital visits, according to an analysis from TransUnion Healthcare.

It finds hospital visits stagnated below pre-COVID-19 levels in the last 25 weeks of 2020 and will likely stay that way throughout 2021.

The updated analysis of more than 500 hospitals across the United States found that during the week of December 13, 2020:

• ED visits were down 30% compared to pre-COVID-19 volumes
   
• Inpatient volumes were down 8% compared to pre-COVID-19 volumes
   
• Outpatient volumes were up 1% compared to pre-COVID-19 volumes

The new analysis also looked at year-over-year changes in hospital visits by treatment setting and found:

• Outpatient visits were up 5% year-over-year from the weeks of June 28-July 4 through December 13-19 but still slightly below the gains experienced pre-COVID-19
   
• ED volumes were down 22% year-over-year
   
• Inpatient volumes were down 7% year-over-year

“As the country continues to struggle with mitigating the spread of COVID-19, we’ll likely see continued volatility in hospital patient visit volumes over the next 12 months,” Jonathan Wiik, principal of healthcare strategy at TransUnion Healthcare, said in a statement. “The management of vaccination distribution at scale will have positive impacts on hospital patient visits in 2021, though long-term recovery won’t occur for some time.”