Chaunte Causey

Source: Telehealth.HHS.gov

By the age of 8, over half of children in the U.S. have had a cavity. Cavities and dental disease can affect children’s education. Telehealth is a tool that may help increase access to oral health care.

The University of California San Francisco’s School of Dentistry is training dental residents to use telehealth. Both a dental assistant and hygienist see each child in person at their school. They document the child’s dental needs. This information is sent to people training to be a children’s dentist, called a pediatric dental resident. These residents are overseen by dentists. The dental residents review the information and create a dental care treatment plan. The school-based dental team in the rural area then uses this plan to provide care.

By University of Utah Health

Telehealth visits are commonly used for mental and behavioral health care, and since the days of the early pandemic, patients have increasingly used virtual meetings with doctors to meet other health care needs. But the full scope of who’s accessing health care remotely—and why—is less clear.

A new study of Medicare patients across the country has found that nearly half of telehealth visits are for non-mental health conditions, often chronic conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure. The results provide a crucial foundation to help shape health care policies and practices to make quality care accessible to all.

The results are published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

By Julia Ivanova, PhD, MA (Telehealth.org)

Key Takeaways

• Many Medicare telehealth flexibilities were extended through Dec. 31, 2027 under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2026.
• A review of behavioral telehealth policies that are permanent, including home-based care, audio-only services, and expanded clinician eligibility.
• Stakeholders are increasingly pushing for stand-alone telehealth legislation to reduce disruption caused by reliance on short-term funding bills.

Federal telehealth policy in 2026 is in transition following Congress’s action to end a partial government shutdown and extend several Medicare telehealth provisions. However, many key flexibilities remain temporary, and lawmakers are now turning to broader legislation to provide long-term stability.

On Feb. 3, 2026, Congress approved a funding package, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2026 (H.R. 7148), along with a two-week continuing resolution to fund the Department of Homeland Security, bringing an end to the partial government shutdown and reinstating key telehealth flexibilities for multiple years. The legislation extends Medicare telehealth flexibilities through Dec. 31, 2027. These flexibilities include waiving the in-person requirement for Medicare behavioral telehealth visits, allowing home as an originating site and geographic waivers, and expanding Medicare clinician eligibility. The flexibilities also allow Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and Rural Health Centers (RHCs) to serve as distant-site telehealth providers for Medicare patients, and allow audio-only telehealth services. Find further information on telehealth items included in the funding package here.

Section 6209 of the funding package also states the renewal of the Acute Hospital at Home Program through Sept. 30, 2030, and continues in-home cardiopulmonary rehabilitation flexibilities through Jan. 1, 2028. The bill also requires the Department of Health and Human Services to issue guidance within one year on providing telehealth services to individuals with limited English proficiency. It expands the Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program to include virtual diabetes suppliers through Dec. 31, 2029.

Temporary Extensions And Their Impact

The reinstated Medicare telehealth flexibilities under the funding package renew policies that had previously lapsed or were set to lapse amid the 2025-26 funding negotiations. These include waivers that allow beneficiaries to receive telehealth services in their homes regardless of geographical location and expanded provider eligibility for occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech-language pathologists, and audiologists: all provisions created during the COVID-19 public health emergency and repeatedly extended through short-term legislative action.

Despite bipartisan support for telehealth, most of these policies remain temporary. Congress has historically extended such flexibilities through continuing resolutions and omnibus packages, a strategy that has often left Medicare telehealth coverage and reimbursement vulnerable to shutdown negotiations and deadlines.

What Is Permanent

Even amid these stopgap measures, some telehealth flexibilities had already been made permanent, most notably in the behavioral health space. Medicare’s expanded coverage for behavioral telehealth is established as a permanent Medicare benefit.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 eliminated long-standing Medicare restrictions on behavioral health telemedicine, expanding where and how mental health services may be delivered. The law allows Medicare beneficiaries to receive behavioral health care from any location, including their homes, and removes the requirement that patients be located in rural areas. It also authorized the use of audio-only technology for behavioral health visits when patients are unable to access or decline real-time video services. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) later incorporated these changes into the 2022 Physician Fee Schedule, clarifying that clinicians must be able to offer video services and document the reason for providing audio-only care.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 further expanded Medicare behavioral health telehealth by broadening the range of clinicians and facilities able to bill for telehealth. Beginning Jan. 1, 2024, marriage and family therapists and mental health counselors were recognized as Medicare telehealth practitioners, allowing them to enroll in Medicare and bill for virtual behavioral health services. The law also permanently designated FQHCs and RHCs as distant-site providers for behavioral telehealth, enabling clinicians based in those settings to be reimbursed for delivering virtual behavioral health care to Medicare beneficiaries regardless of patient location.

These permanent behavioral telehealth policies stand in contrast to the broader set of flexibilities for general telehealth services, which, under the latest legislative action, continue only through specific future dates rather than enduring law.

Toward Stand-alone Legislation in 2026

With the shutdown ended and temporary coverage secured through 2027 for many policies, the focus of telehealth advocates and lawmakers will likely shift to passing stand-alone telehealth legislation. Proposed measures, such as the CONNECT for Health Act and the Telehealth Modernization Act, aim to make a broader suite of telehealth flexibilities permanent, reducing the recurring uncertainty created by attaching critical coverage to must-pass funding bills.

Without statutory protections, providers and patients will continue to face episodic disruptions and administrative complexities whenever Congress confronts budget deadlines. In a Brown University policy brief, during the 2025 shutdown, there was a 24% drop in the first 17 days compared with prior months, with individual states such as Florida, Louisiana, and New York seeing even more precipitous drops of 40% or more. The same policy brief noted that telehealth levels returned to the levels seen before the December shutdown. However, even while many can resume telehealth easily, others may find a short lapse in coverage consequential to their health, such as patients using the Acute Hospital at Home program. With all this considered, health care groups such as the American Medical Association have pressed Congress to enact permanent authorization of Medicare telehealth services. After all, even with Congress’s action this year providing a multiyear runway, these flexibilities are not the lasting certainty many clinicians and health systems seek.

Disclosures:

• This article was developed with AI-assisted research tools and edited by the Telehealth News editorial team for accuracy and clarity.

By Morgan Gonzales, HomeHealthCareNews.com

On Tuesday [February 3, 2026], Congress and President Donald Trump passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026, reopening the government after it partially shut down for three days, pausing two measures important to the home-based care community.

The bill, passed following a political backlash to funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), funds most of the government through Sept. 30, 2026. It extends certain telehealth flexibilities for two years and extends the Medicare Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver for five years.

On the telehealth flexibility front, the funding package allows the face-to-face visit to be performed via telehealth – a flexibility that extends home health providers’ patient pools and avoids some back-office burden. While home health providers will benefit from this extended flexibility, the funding package does not allow for telehealth flexibilities for hospice providers in some circumstances, including if the person receiving hospice care is located in an area where CMS has placed a moratorium on enrolling hospice providers and if the person is receiving care from a provider subject to the Provisional Period of Enhanced Oversight (PPEO). The National Alliance for Care at Home said in a statement that the organization was “concerned” about these limitations for hospices.

For the hospital-at-home waiver program, the five-year extension adds an element of at least short-term certainty after the program has been kept alive by a series of short-term measures. Regulatory uncertainty has caused a “wait and see” moment for the industry, and was cited as the reason for Inbound Health’s closure.

“For patients, this means fewer disruptive hospital stays, more healing at home, and greater access to high-quality acute care – especially for older adults and those in rural communities,” Pippa Shulman, chief medical officer of hospital-at-home operator DispatchHealth, said in a LinkedIn post. “For health systems, it provides the stability needed to invest in innovation, build teams and scale programs that reduce crowding, improve outcomes and meet people where they are.”

Additionally, the bill streamlines the enrollment process for providers serving people under 21 in a state other than their primary Medicaid enrollment.

By Jim Parker, HospiceNews.com

An extension of the COVID-era telehealth flexibilities is wallowing in Congress but will likely pass soon. The flexibilities expired Jan. 30.

The extension is tied up in a funding bill for several federal agencies. The bill has been stymied by debate over funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) amid concern over aggressive tactics used by those agents in several U.S. cities. This has led to a partial government shutdown. However, many observers believe that the telehealth provision will move forward within the coming week.

“It is likely the shutdown will be short-lived, expected to end next week when House members are expected to return for a vote,” the National Alliance for Care at Home indicated in an alert to its members. “The Alliance recommends that home health agencies and hospices prepare for the telehealth flexibilities to end on Jan. 30, as we have previously recommended. While it would be anticipated that there would be a retroactive approval of the telehealth flexibilities that covers the anticipated short shutdown period, it is not guaranteed.”

The telehealth extension provisions are contained in a single-package appropriations legislation, which would extend the flexibilities through the end of 2027. This includes the ability of hospices to perform patient re-certification face-to-face encounters via telehealth.

This would also include waivers that expanded the scope of practitioners eligible to provide telehealth services, as well as flexibilities that removed geographic requirements and expanded originating sites for telehealth services, including federally qualified health centers and rural health clinics.

Hospices and other health care providers have increasingly relied on virtual services over the past five years under telehealth waivers, particularly to reach patients in rural and remote areas with limited access to care.

Telehealth has enabled hospices to serve a growing patient population amid rising demand and persistent staffing shortages intensified by the pandemic. Virtual care has also expanded support for patients and caregivers, allowing providers to reduce unnecessary home visits while better managing clinician workloads.

CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz in his Senate confirmation hearing indicated that expanding telehealth utilization is a “major focus” for the agency.

“Congress has a responsibility to extend telehealth widely throughout the nation, and as it was during COVID …” Oz said. “It is a major focus of mine, and if confirmed, it’s one of the areas I think we’ll be able to make major inroads, because there are no opponents to this.”

However, no CMS action on telehealth has materialized to date.

The expiration, even if short lived, could create widespread disruption for hospice providers, according to Logan Hoover, vice president of policy and government relations for the National Alliance for Care at Home.

“There will be a tremendous amount of unnecessary disruption. This flexibility has been in place for almost six years; it has become a standard part of operations,” Hoover previously told Hospice News. “The consequence for a hospice using telehealth during a lapse in authority to conduct the face-to-face visit could be not being paid at all for the entire benefit period, making the hospice liable for thousands of dollars. Worse, the requirement could delay a patient’s access to hospice care if the visit is required before service begins.”

By Eric Wicklund, Healthleadersmedia.com

Congress is moving forward with a healthcare package that would, among other things, extend the telehealth waivers and the CMS Acute Hospital Care at Home (AHCaH) program.

According to news reports Tuesday out of Washington DC, the bill, part of a package being prepared for a vote to fund government agencies and avoid a potential shutdown, would extend the telehealth flexibilities through 2027 and the AHCaH program through 2030. It would also boost this year’s funding for community health centers to $6.4 billion and enable Medicare coverage for multi-cancer early detection screening tests.

Advocates reacted with cautious optimism to the news, noting that the bipartisan bill will still have to pass muster with GOP fiscal conservatives – and be approved by President Trump.

“We’ve seen before that even strong, bipartisan proposals can face unexpected hurdles late in the process, which is why it’s important not to take any outcome for granted when it comes to Congressional legislation,” Alexis Apple, vice president of federal affairs for the American Telemedicine Association and deputy executive director of ATA Action, said in a press release. “This momentum is real and meaningful, and it is a very good sign that telehealth provisions continue to advance with bipartisan support. We are optimistic this legislation can move forward, as it includes a number of strong bipartisan priorities and is not tied to the more partisan homeland security funding debate currently underway.”

Aside from the extensions, the bill would extend coverage for in-home cardiopulmonary rehabilitation services through 2027; enhance Medicare coverage of durable medical equipment (DME) services; mandate that the Health and Human Services Department issue guidance within a year on improving virtual care services for patients with limited English proficiency; and include digital health companies in the Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program through 2029.

The bill, if passed into law, provides some measure of relief for healthcare leaders mapping out their telehealth and Hospital at Home strategies, but advocates were quick to point out it’s just another in a long line of extensions approved by federal regulators since they were enacted in 2020 during the COVID pandemic.

Without this deal, the telehealth waivers and AHCaH program would expire in less than two weeks.

Supporters say the telehealth flexibilities in particular are needed to help expand and improve virtual care services offered through health systems and hospitals. Without any assurance that they would be permanent, leadership has to develop and fund programs with the understanding that they may have to be shut down when the waivers expire.

Through those flexibilities, the government has:

• Waived geographic restrictions on telehealth coverage and use;
• Expanded the list of providers able to bill Medicare for telehealth services;
• Allowed audio-only telehealth services;
• Eased originating site restrictions on telehealth so that the patient can receive treatment at home;
• Waived the in-person requirement for telemental health treatment;
• Enabled telehealth service for hospice care; and
• Enabled Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and Rural Health Clinics (RHCs) to use telehealth.

By Jessica Hall, Marketwatch.com

Telehealth services for Medicare beneficiaries which were slated to end later this month may get a two-year extension that could keep in place the pandemic-era services available to more than 67 million beneficiaries.

Under a funding package released by the U.S. House appropriations committee on Tuesday, Medicare’s telehealth coverage would be extended until Dec. 31, 2027. Policymakers face a Jan. 30 deadline to extend telehealth funding, or coverage that has been in effect since March 2020 will lapse.

Written by Susan Morse, HealthcareFinanceNews.com

The American Telemedicine Association is warning of yet another upcoming telehealth cliff.

There are just 24 days left for Congress to pass a federal budget and to extend the next telehealth deadline, before the government shuts down on Jan. 30, the ATA yesterday.

ATA Action, the affiliated policy and legislative advocacy arm of the American Telemedicine Association, is once again urging Congress to act to avoid another lapse in telehealth services.

The answer is for Congress to make permanent what has been temporary extensions since the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency, the ATA said.

“We are counting on our government champions to find a permanent solution or at least to establish a long-term extension for these telehealth waivers,” said Alexis Apple, deputy executive director, ATA Action, and vice president of federal affairs at the ATA.

Also on the chopping block at the end of the month unless Congress acts are Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH) cuts and the acute hospital care at home program.

WHY THIS MATTERS

Telehealth and other flexibilities are supported by hospitals.

All are tied up in the government funding package and are of concern, said America’s Essential Hospitals.

THE LARGER TREND

Telehealth and other healthcare flexibilities were threatened in the last government shutdown, which began Oct. 1 and became the longest shutdown in U.S. history. It ended Nov. 12 when Congress reached a budget agreement.

Democrats had held out for a continuation of Affordable Care Act enhanced subsidies but failed to get that pushed through.

The U.S. House of Representatives today was poised to vote on a three-year extension of the tax credits. The legislation is expected to pass the House, but was believed to have no chance in the Senate.

ON THE RECORD

“With only a handful of days left, time is running out for Congress to send legislation to President Trump for signature, extending essential telehealth and digital health services for the Medicare population, as well as for the millions of Americans in rural and urban communities and those with chronic and acute conditions who have come to rely on these virtual care solutions,” said ATA’s Apple. “We realize that Congress is returning to Washington with a number of pressing issues to address, right out of the gate. However, extending these telehealth waivers, originally put in place by President Trump during his first term in office, should be a slam dunk.”