Congress Must Permanently Protect Telehealth Access as Deadline Looms

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Deadline: September 30, 2025

The clock is winding down once again on critical telehealth flexibilities, putting millions of patients, including many seniors, at risk of losing access to the virtual care they rely on. Urgent action is needed to safeguard telehealth access and provide the long-term certainty necessary to unlock the full potential of virtual care for patients.

President Trump and Congress initially enacted Medicare telehealth flexibilities in 2020 to ensure that America’s most vulnerable patients could access necessary care. These flexibilities increased access to virtual care and patient choice and improved health outcomes and quality of life, all while lowering costs.

Despite these benefits, millions of patients once again face the prospect of a telehealth cliff at the end of this month, because of repeated short-term extensions of these critical flexibilities. The threat of potential lapses in access undermines the full promise of telehealth in America.

Deterrent to Innovation: A lack of long-term certainty acts as a deterrent to investments in new innovative technologies and service offerings that could help patients unlock greater access to care, lower costs and improved health outcomes.

Catalyst for Confusion: Telehealth has strong bipartisan support. But relying on politically charged government funding packages to enact short-term fixes for telehealth imposes confusion and uncertainty on patients and providers. For instance, at the beginning of this year, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) was delayed in issuing telehealth payment guidance as a result of confusion stemming from an elongated year-end government spending process.

Cause of Uncertainty: Patients are left without the peace of mind they deserve to know their access to care will continue to be there for them.

There is overwhelmingly strong bipartisan support for the critical value of telehealth from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. President Trump has called telehealth a “critical part of our path forward” for America’s health care system.

Congress must capitalize on the broad support for telehealth by permanently safeguarding access to virtual care for patients, especially America’s more than six million seniors who rely on telehealth and deserve long term certainty.

ABOUT TELEHEALTH ACCESS FOR AMERICA

Telehealth Access for America (TAFA) is a public education campaign supported by leaders in health care committed to better care, expanded patient choice, and protecting access to critical telehealth services. Learn more and take action today at www.telehealthaccessforamerica.org.