Advocacy Issue: Telehealth Waivers

Background

At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government moved quickly to ensure hospitals and health systems were able to leverage telehealth services to respond efficiently and effectively to a wave of unprecedented need. These actions included the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) waiving certain regulatory requirements and Congress providing significant legislative support to ensure hospitals and health systems could rapidly deploy virtual services.

Given current health care challenges, including major clinician shortages, telehealth holds tremendous potential to leverage geographically dispersed provider capacity to support patient demand.

AHA Take

The telehealth flexibilities granted resulted in significant benefits to patient care and are needed now more than ever to ensure patients’ continued access to high-quality care. Currently, there is a patchwork of temporary waivers for telehealth services that, barring further action, will expire in March 2025. If this occurs, we risk a telehealth “cliff” that would negatively impact patient access in all communities.

Recognizing both the immediate and potential long-term benefits of telehealth, we urge Congress, CMS and other executive agencies to take action to make critical telehealth flexibilities permanent.

Key Resources