Unless
Congress acts, the
Medicare telehealth flexibilities that millions of patients and providers have relied upon since March 2020 are scheduled to expire at the end of the month on
September 30, 2025. These waivers expanded access to telehealth services during the pandemic and ever since, by loosening restrictions around location, provider eligibility, and the audio-only modality. If the waivers expire, Medicare beneficiaries will face a significant rollback in access to telehealth services unless Congress passes legislation to extend or modify the waiver policies.
Still, the policy landscape remains in flux, and Congressional negotiations prior to September 30 could shift the outcome. In the past, extensions of the Medicare telehealth waivers have often been tucked into last-minute government spending bills that also averted shutdowns. That pattern may be repeated, as current federal government funding measures—
S. 2882 and
H.R. 5371—include provisions to extend the waivers, though only temporarily: until October 31, 2025 under S. 2882 and November 21, 2025 under H.R. 5371. Importantly, for any government funding bill to succeed and be enacted, it must clear both the House and Senate, a significant hurdle, and be signed into law by the President before it can take effect and prevent the September 30 expiration of the Medicare telehealth waivers. As of now, neither of the bills have advanced past the Senate.
Earlier this month, Reps. Earl Carter (R-Ga.) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) introduced legislation,
HR 5081 – The Telehealth Modernization Act, to extend telehealth flexibilities for Medicare patients through September 30, 2027. Several similar federal bills have previously been introduced in Congress during the 2025 legislative session. The bills vary, but many would either extend existing telehealth flexibilities or make them permanent. CCHP featured a number of these bills in a July
newsletter, and you can continue to track their progress through CCHP’s
pending legislation tracker. However, an
article in
The Hill points out that opponents continue to voice concerns about cost, quality of care, fraud, and potential overuse. According to a
report by the
Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), these concerns have become a central part of the debate over how far and how quickly to extend current telehealth flexibilities. Additionally, according to
the article previously mentioned
, The Hill reported that it reached out to the
White House and the
Office of Management and Budget for comment on the Administration’s stance regarding reauthorization of Medicare coverage for telehealth services, but no clear position was reported in the article.
Earlier this summer, CCHP ran a four-part series in our weekly
#TelehealthTuesday newsletter exploring what Medicare telehealth policy could look like if the current temporary waivers expire as scheduled. Each article examined the interplay between a potential expiration on September 30 and the proposals outlined in CMS’s proposed
2026 Physician Fee Schedule (PFS), released in July.
The series highlighted several key areas: