“Breaking information: The Trump administration simply introduced that Medicare will cease protecting telehealth beginning April 1. … We have to stand as much as these Medicare cuts.”
Rep. Ro. Khanna (D-Calif.), in a TikTok video posted Feb. 20, 2025
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) posted a Tiktok video on Feb. 20 saying he had “breaking information” concerning the destiny of Medicare protection for telehealth visits, which permit sufferers to see well being care suppliers remotely from their houses.
“Breaking information: The Trump administration simply introduced that Medicare will cease protecting telehealth beginning April 1,” Khanna mentioned. “We have to stand as much as these Medicare cuts.”
The identical day, the Facilities for Medicare & Medicaid Companies posted a doc on-line titled “Telehealth” that mentioned, “Via March 31, 2025, you may get telehealth companies at any location within the U.S., together with your own home. Beginning April 1, 2025, you have to be in an workplace or medical facility positioned in a rural space (within the U.S.) for many telehealth companies.”
CMS didn’t reply to requests for remark concerning the publish. The White Home additionally didn’t reply to requests for remark.
The telehealth profit was first put in place as a brief Trump-era addition to Medicare protection through the covid-19 public well being emergency.
Khanna’s assertion took on extra significance main as much as the specter of a authorities shutdown, however late final week Congress averted one by approving a stopgap spending invoice.
The expiration date for the profit has been recognized since December, when Congress prolonged protection round telehealth by means of March 31. The roughly 90-day reprieve was a part of a compromise after then-President-elect Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk criticized a sweeping, end-of-year legislative bundle that will have, amongst different issues, continued these advantages for 2 years.
Their opposition compelled Congress to go a stripped-down model of the end-of-year invoice. Telehealth’s two-year extension, included within the preliminary invoice, turned collateral harm.
Final week, simply because the clock was ticking down, Home Republicans handed a spending invoice for the remainder of the fiscal 12 months that features one other extension of telehealth flexibilities — this one lasting by means of September. The Senate then cleared the invoice for Trump’s signature, with the help of 10 Democrats, together with Senate Minority Chief Chuck Schumer.
Regardless, the two-year extension proposed in December — or a everlasting extension, as Khanna has urged — appears to be like unlikely.
“President Trump and Elon Musk blew up the persevering with decision final December that will have prolonged these telehealth authorities by two years,” Khanna instructed us through e-mail. “Trump ought to work with Congress to increase telehealth protection for Medicare beneficiaries.”
It wouldn’t come free. Completely extending telehealth for medical care beneath Medicare may value taxpayers about $25 billion over 10 years, the Congressional Funds Workplace has estimated. The CBO calculated 5 months of expanded telehealth protection as costing $663 million, and calculated that that will complete virtually $25 billion by means of fiscal 12 months 2031 if spending remained degree, which it could not do.
Additionally, the company and the Authorities Accountability Workplace have raised considerations about fraud and overuse of the profit, amongst different potential points.
Congress made Medicare protection of behavioral well being companies delivered remotely everlasting in December 2020, however left different telehealth advantages hanging on by a string. As an alternative, lawmakers prolonged them for brief durations through the practically two years because the public well being emergency formally led to Might 2023.
“Now, as soon as once more, we’ve acquired one other deadline the place, if Congress doesn’t act, our flexibilities go away,” mentioned Kyle Zebley, senior vp of public coverage for the American Telemedicine Affiliation.
And if, sooner or later, the telehealth advantages aren’t prolonged, is it truthful to explain the coverage change as a reduce? Khanna, as an example, plans to introduce the Telehealth Protection Act, which might require Medicare to cowl seniors’ telehealth companies.
Politically talking, it’s a strong query when attempting to leverage public help — and politicians in each events usually accuse their opponents of “chopping” federal advantages after they make modifications to applications.
“Khanna is overly dramatic,” mentioned Joseph Antos, a senior fellow emeritus on the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative suppose tank.
If the supply expires, Antos mentioned, “this isn’t a Trump reduce.”
However beneficiaries might need a distinct expertise. For the reason that early days of the pandemic — 5 years now — tens of millions of sufferers have come to depend on telehealth for his or her medical companies. That profit, even with one other momentary reprieve, would nonetheless be in danger.
In response to CMS, greater than 1 in 10 Medicare beneficiaries used digital care companies as of 2023. And, after the Trump administration green-lighted telehealth for Medicare recipients in 2020, many non-public insurers did the identical.
Total telehealth claims in Medicare rose from fewer than 1% of all claims earlier than the covid pandemic to a peak of 13% in April 2020. Now they stand at shut to five%, in accordance with Truthful Well being, a nonprofit that tracks well being care prices.
These within the telehealth business are optimistic concerning the present extension. The Trump administration, they are saying, has been sending encouraging indicators — even highlighting its earlier help of telemedicine in its reality sheet on the launch of the President’s Make America Wholesome Once more Fee.
“We’ve been sweating bullets,” Zebley mentioned. “But it surely’s been nerve-wracking earlier than. I believe we’re going to get it accomplished.”
Antos mentioned, nevertheless, that after the extension within the Home-passed spending invoice, Medicare’s telemedicine advantages may very well be lifeless.
Our Ruling
Khanna mentioned, “Breaking information: The Trump administration simply introduced that Medicare will cease protecting telehealth beginning April 1. … We have to stand as much as these Medicare cuts.”
The assertion is partially correct, as a result of the Trump administration introduced the March 31 sundown of Medicare telehealth visits, and a few beneficiaries who had been utilizing that profit may see it as a “reduce.” However the declare lacks key context that the expiration date was set by Congress, not the Trump administration.
After Khanna’s declare, Congress prolonged entry to telehealth protection by means of September.
Primarily based on info that was out there on the time, we price Khanna’s assertion Half True.
Our Sources:
Rep. Ro Khanna’s Feb. 20, 2025 TikTok video.
The American Aid Act, 2025.
Vice President J.D. Vance’s X publish on behalf of himself and President Donald Trump on the year-end legislative bundle, Dec. 18, 2024.
One among a flurry of Elon Musk’s X posts deriding the federal government’s year-end legislative bundle, Dec. 20, 2024.
Electronic mail interview with Rep. Ro Khanna’s workplace, March 3, 2025.
H.R.1968 — Full-12 months Persevering with Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025.
H.R.133 — Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021
Cellphone interview and follow-up texts with Kyle Zebley, senior vp of public coverage for the American Telemedicine Affiliation and govt director of ATA Motion, March 3, 2025.
Electronic mail interview with Joseph Antos, senior fellow emeritus for public coverage analysis on the suppose tank the American Enterprise Institute, March 8, 2025.
A Facilities for Medicare & Medicaid Companies publish CMS publish titled “Telehealth” that features info to recipients about Medicare telehealth advantages ending April 1, 2025.
The journal Major Care, “The State of Telehealth Earlier than and After the COVID-19 Pandemic,” April 25, 2022.
CMS, “Medicare Telehealth Developments,” Jan. 1, 2020 and June 30, 2024.
H.R. 2471, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, Congressional Funds Workplace, March 14, 2022.
“Medicare and Medicaid: COVID-19 Program Flexibilities and Issues for Their Continuation,” U.S. Authorities Accountability Workplace, Might 19, 2021.
Preprint: “Telehealth and Outpatient Utilization: Developments in Analysis and Administration Visits Amongst Medicare Payment-For-Service Beneficiaries, 2019-2024,” March 6, 2025.
Preprint: “Affiliation Between Telehealth Use and Downstream 30-Day Medicare Spending,” Feb. 11, 2025.
Ro Khanna’s press launch on the telehealth invoice he’s introducing.
“Annual Variety of Customers of On-line Physician Consultations Worldwide From 2017 to 2028,” Statista Market Insights, March 15, 2024.
ATA Motion letter to Congress, Jan. 13, 2025.
Make America Wholesome Once more reality sheet, Feb. 13, 2025.
CMS, “Medicare Telehealth Developments Report,” October 2024.
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