Sponsors (5)
The bill expands and makes permanent Medicare telehealth access for mental health and substance use care (including retroactive coverage), improving access and continuity for beneficiaries and rural clinics, at the cost of higher Medicare spending, potential privacy/quality trade-offs, and implementation costs for providers.
Medicare beneficiaries with mental health conditions and substance use disorders can access telehealth for diagnosis, evaluation, and treatment (including coverage retroactive to July 1, 2020) and keep using a broader set of originating sites once the COVID-19 emergency ends, improving continuity of care.
Rural Health Clinics (RHCs) and Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) can permanently provide mental health visits via Medicare telehealth (the expiration is removed), expanding access in underserved and rural communities that rely on these safety-net providers.
Expanded Medicare telehealth coverage will likely increase federal Medicare spending, which could add to budgetary pressures on taxpayers and the federal deficit.
Some beneficiaries may experience lower privacy protections or reduced quality of care for complex mental health and substance use cases when treated via telehealth versus in-person visits.
RHCs, FQHCs and other providers will face technology, infrastructure, and training costs to implement and sustain expanded telehealth services, which could strain smaller safety-net providers.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Introduced March 5, 2025 by Kevin Hern · Last progress March 5, 2025
Removes several in-person, geographic, and temporary limits on Medicare telehealth for mental health and substance use disorder care. It makes telehealth treatment for substance use disorders available retroactively to July 1, 2020, extends certain mental health telehealth flexibilities beyond the COVID-19 emergency period, and makes telehealth mental health visits by rural health clinics (RHCs) and federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) permanent by striking an expiration date.