Telehealth on hold: ‘A very sad, desperate state’

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress granted a number of flexibilities in payment for telehealth services for Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries. Those flexibilities have had periodic extensions — but expired after Sept. 30, 2025. The timing so far is coincident with a shutdown of the federal government. Kyle Zebley is senior vice president, public policy, of the American Telemedicine Association, and executive director of ATA Action, its advocacy affiliate. Here he describes the state of telemedicine for traditional Medicare beneficiaries.

Medical Economics: Can you explain what is the current state of the telehealth flexibilities and allowances for Medicare?

Kyle Zebley: Right now we're in a very sad, desperate state, to be honest with you, one that is deeply upsetting to me, deeply upsetting to our ATA and ATA Action members, obviously extraordinarily disruptive in the ability to deliver care for Medicare providers across the country. And most critically, we are in a place in time three days into this shutdown, as of today, October 3, late of morning, we're at a place in time where Medicare beneficiaries and patients are objectively losing out. They have lost access to areas of care and appropriate treatment that they have been able to receive for the 5 1/2 years preceding this telehealth shutdown that commenced 12:01 a.m. October one. That's unacceptable. It shouldn't have happened. It needs to stop as quickly as possible. The longer this goes on, the worse the pain is for the American people. It's a great shame that we are here, because we're popular, we're bipartisan. There's no one that's out there objecting to continuing these telehealth flexibilities in the Acute Hospital Care at Home program. And yet, because of the dynamics around this government shutdown and the fact that our latest extension came up for needing another extension right at the same time as the dynamics around the shutdown, we’re very much a victim of circumstance, and I wish that wasn't the case, but here we are.