News

By Dennis Thompson (U.S. News & World Report)

By American Hospital Association

In the wake of the extension of many Medicare telehealth flexibilities through Dec. 31, 2027, researchers have shared findings that shed light on the popularity and cost of this care delivery method compared to in-person care. Following its sharp increase in usage borne out of necessity during the pandemic, it has become an integral part of the health care ecosystem and a tool for expanding access to care while conserving financial resources.

Here are a few notable insights into telehealth utilization rates from a recent Epic Research analysis.

1 | Telehealth utilization seems to have stabilized at 6-7% in primary care.

After skyrocketing during the pandemic, the telehealth utilization rate in the realm of primary care declined from mid-2022 to mid-2023 and has since seemed to stabilize at 6-7%, indicating “a new steady state in the balance between virtual and in-person care,” according to Epic Research. The analysis found that telehealth declined from slightly more than 8% of primary care encounters in July 2022 to a bit less than 6% in October 2025, constituting a 30% decrease.

2 | Patients with a preferred language other than English are more likely to use telehealth services.

During the study period, Epic Research found that the 12-month rolling average percentage of primary care visits conducted via telehealth was significantly higher for patients who preferred a language other than English. As of October 2025, compared to individuals with a preference for English, utilization rates were greater for individuals who spoke Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, Persian or Spanish.

3 | Telehealth use varies by specialty and is highest for mental health.

Outside of the realm of primary care, telemedicine prevalence compared to in-person care varies considerably across medical specialties, as shown by the Epic Research telehealth utilization tracker. As of December 2025, mental health had the highest utilization rate at 28.2%, followed by endocrinology (11.4%) and obstetrics (9.4%). Urgent care had the lowest rate at 2.3%.

4 | People in metropolitan areas favor telemedicine for primary care more than those in rural regions.

Patients in metro areas use telehealth services at approximately twice the rate of individuals in more rural areas. In October 2025, metropolitan patients demonstrated a telehealth utilization rate greater than 6%, compared to less than 4% for people in small towns.

By Joel Abrams, From TheConversation.com

Americans age 65 and older who are insured by Medicare logged about 60 million telehealth visits annually between 2021 and 2023 – about 31 million for mental health and 29 million for other health issues. That’s the key finding in a new study I co-authored in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

We also found that people with Medicare coverage who used telehealth services were generally in poorer health and faced more physical and functional limitations in their daily life, compared with their counterparts who only had medical appointments in person.

To get at these numbers, we analyzed a national survey called the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey, which provides a nationally representative snapshot of how different groups of Americans use and receive health care. Based on our analysis, we generated national estimates of telehealth visits that reflect care patterns for everyone insured through Medicare, a federal health insurance program primarily for people age 65 and older as well as some younger people with disabilities.

Why it matters

In just a few years, telehealth has become a central part of how health care is delivered in the United States – and it is likely to continue to play an important role in the health care system.

Before 2020, patients rarely got their health care virtually. About 1.7% of Medicare patients – 910,490 people – used telehealth for medical appointments in 2019. These were mostly patients in rural areas, and only certain clinics were authorized to offer it.

But during the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government expanded telehealth coverage for people insured by Medicare to make it easier for patients to maintain access to health care. Many insurance companies did, too. The number of Medicare patients using telehealth services jumped to 53% in 2021, corresponding to nearly 28.3 million telehealth users at the peak of the pandemic.

While telehealth appointments overall – not just for people with Medicare coverage – have dropped since the height of the pandemic, they remain much higher than pre-pandemic levels, according to data from Epic, the largest electronic medical record company in the U.S.

Legislation passed in 2021 made Medicare’s coverage of telehealth permanent for mental health services. But coverage for accessing care via telehealth for other types of health conditions, such as respiratory infections or diabetes, is set to expire in 2027 – and policymakers are still deciding whether to continue it.

Our findings underscore the important role that telehealth has come to serve in enabling older adults to access health care for all types of acute and chronic medical conditions. Emerging research suggests it can help them see their providers more consistently without compromising the quality of care compared to in-person visits.

Limiting access to telehealth services could reverse recent gains in access for older adults – particularly for patients who have geographical or health limitations that can make getting to in-person appointments challenging.

What still isn’t known

While our study sheds light on who used telehealth and for what medical conditions, several important questions remain.

First, we did not explicitly examine quality of care. More research is needed to pin down whether telehealth visits are comparable to in-person visits for treating different conditions. My colleagues and I plan to explore this issue for specific conditions, such as diabetes.

Second, our analysis focused on people who have Medicare coverage. Patterns may differ for younger patients or those with other kinds of health insurance.

However, our study aligns with others that have examined telehealth use since the pandemic.

While no single study or report is perfect, the overall evidence suggests that telehealth can help improve access to care and appears to be a reasonable alternative – either by itself or as a complement to in-person care for certain medical conditions.

By Kaitlyn Levinson, Route Fifty

By Devyani Gholap (Medscape.com)

TOPLINE:

Telemedicine-based treatment for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, delivered on a mobile van with syringe services, roughly doubled the rate of treatment initiation and significantly improved cure rates among rural people with chronic HCV infection and a history of injection drug use compared with enhanced usual care.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers conducted a randomized clinical trial in three rural US counties to compare treatment for HCV infection delivered via mobile telemedicine vs enhanced usual care for participants with a history of injection drug use and chronic HCV infection.
• A total of 150 participants (mean age, 38.1 years; 68.7% men) were randomly assigned (n = 75 each) to receive mobile telemedicine care or enhanced usual care.
• Mobile telemedicine care consisted of a direct-acting antiviral treatment administered via telemedicine on a mobile van with on-demand syringe services; enhanced usual care involved treatment referral by a mobile van staff with care navigation to local clinicians.
• The primary outcomes were the proportion of participants who initiated the direct-acting antiviral treatment, who achieved viral clearance at the 12-week follow-up, and who reported no sharing of syringes or other injection equipment at any follow‑up visit.
• Follow‑up visits were scheduled at the end of treatment and up to 36 weeks afterward and included a self-reported survey and HCV RNA testing.

TAKEAWAY:

• Overall, follow-up data were available for 79.3% of participants. The mobile telemedicine care group was more than twice as likely to initiate direct-acting antiviral treatment as the enhanced usual care group (relative risk [RR], 2.15; 95% CI, 1.41-3.28).
• Viral clearance at the 12-week follow-up was significantly higher in the mobile telemedicine group than in the enhanced usual care group (RR, 2.00; 95% CI, 1.15-3.49).
• No significant effect was observed on abstaining from sharing syringes or other injection equipment during follow-up.

IN PRACTICE:

“In aggregate, this emerging literature shows that telemedicine — whether facilitated through OTPs [opioid treatment programs], community-based peer interventions, or mobile vans — is a critical tool for lowering barriers to HCV treatment among people who use drugs,” experts wrote in an invited commentary accompanying the journal article.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Peter D. Friedmann, MD, MPH, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts. It was published online on January 26, 2026, in JAMA Network Open.

LIMITATIONS:

The overlap in services, such as care navigation, harm‑reduction services, and vaccinations for hepatitis A and B viruses, likely reduced observed differences between the study groups. Because the study was not blinded, outcome assessments, particularly the self‑reported sharing of injection equipment, may have been biased. The van visited each site only once or twice weekly, which may have lowered follow‑up rates and affected the study outcomes.

DISCLOSURES:

The study was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, CDC, and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Some authors reported receiving grants from these funders, one author reported receiving personal fees from Indivior for service on a scientific advisory board, and another reported serving as chief health officer of a private company subcontracted to deliver the telemedicine intervention and holding stock options.

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.