Article Detail - JE Part A

The "American Relief Act, 2025"(the Act), includes a three-month waiver extension of limitations on Medicare coverage of telehealth services that were most recently extended through the end of 2024 by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023.

The extended waivers include:

• Lifting geographic restrictions and maintaining the expanded list of originating sites including patients' homes.
• Expanding the list of distant site practitioners to include all practitioners who are eligible to bill Medicare for covered services (e.g., physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, audiologists, marriage and family therapists, and mental health counselors).
• Allowing federally qualified health centers and rural health clinics to serve as distant-site providers of telehealth services.
• Allowing payment for audio-only telehealth services.
• Extending the waiver requirement for practitioners who provide behavioral and mental health via telehealth to provide in-person visits within six months of the first telehealth visit and annually thereafter.
• Extending Acute Care Hospital at Home waiver authorities.

Resource: American Relief Act, 2025