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.
“Notably, it is unclear whether any home care providers would qualify as home health and hospice are deemed ‘moderate risk’ by CMS and states are not allowed to classify providers at a lower level of risk than CMS,” the Alliance said in a statement. “Similarly, personal care, private duty nursing, and other non-Medicare home care providers are largely classified as moderate or high risk under the state programs.”
While the bill gives a multi-year runway for both the hospital-at-home waiver program and Medicare telehealth flexibilities, advocates still push to make these flexibilities permanent.
“These extensions provide critical stability and certainty for patients and health care providers but also underscore the work still ahead,” Alexis Apple, deputy executive director of ATA Action and vice president of public affairs at the ATA, said in a statement. “These multi-year extensions will give government agencies, legislators and advocates needed time to hammer out the details of permanent provisions.”
