To avoid a government shutdown, President Joe Biden signed the American Relief Act, 2025, on Dec. 21. The law helped extend the ability of certain telehealth services to be reimbursed for Medicare beneficiaries through March 31, 2025.
The legislation removes previous geographic limitations, allowing Medicare beneficiaries to receive telehealth services from any location including their homes, according to a blog post from the Center for Telehealth and e-Health Law (CTeL).
It also allows a broader range of health care providers to utilize telehealth, including physical and occupational therapists and speech-language pathologists, and expanded telehealth to include audio-only communication. In addition, it extended the waiver allowing hospitals to provide at-home monitoring including virtual care.
However, it covers these services for far less time than was outlined in a continuing resolution that was previously expected to have been voted on in December. That resolution included a two-year extension of the ability to care for Medicare patients through telehealth, a five-year extension of the Acute Hospital at Home program, and an allowance in 2025 and 2026 to furnish cardiopulmonary rehabilitation services at Medicare beneficiaries’ homes via telehealth.
While we wait to see what happens under the second Trump Administration, here are some novel angles to help spur telehealth story ideas or focus your telehealth news coverage:
Telehealth is popular among adults with dementia
Telehealth may be beneficial for people with dementia, according to a recent study that compared primary care appointments at UC San Francisco and Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif., before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Investigators noted that appointments for people with dementia who went only in person fell from 60% to 27% at Kaiser and from 99% to 35% at UCSF.
By contrast, telehealth-only visits by phone or video increased from 5.5% to 29% at Kaiser and 0.3% to 20% at UCSF. Those with longer drives to the clinic and the oldest patients were most likely to use telemedicine, probably due to challenges traveling to appointments, researchers said. The exception? People with limited English proficiency.
Women turning to telehealth for abortion pills
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, many women turned to telehealth to receive prescriptions for abortion medications.
For example, while Wisconsin law prohibits the use of telehealth for abortion services, a report from the organization #WeCount showed about 130 orders for abortion medication were being shipped to the state each month from providers in other states, Wisconsin Public Radio reported.
In the fall of 2023, New York City public hospitals began offering abortion care via telehealth, becoming one of the first public health systems to do so.
Telemedicine in ambulances supports EMTs, patients
With a shortage of trained emergency medical workers and often long ambulance rides to a medical center, the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services turned to telemedicine.
After contracting with an outside vendor, they outfitted 65 ambulances in 26 communities with cabin-mounted telehealth tablets, which allow a solo technician riding in the back with a patient to connect instantly with an experienced emergency physician, paramedic or nurse for real-time support and consultation during transports, Healthcare IT News reported last August.
Mayo Clinic last year engaged in a similar partnership, using hands-free headsets in ambulances to enable remote monitoring of patients en route to the hospital.
Telehealth used to engage clinical trial participants
Some 63% of consumers said they would be more inclined to participate in a clinical trial if it offered virtual visit options, according to a survey from Lindus Health, a contract research organization.
Integrating telehealth into clinical research “can dramatically improve patient experience by removing logistical barriers to participation such as long, in-person study visits, travel to and from sites, and more,” said a company news release about the survey. Nearly all of the 136 people surveyed said they were comfortable using technology to report their data.
In a 2023 example of how this could work, Ohio State University’s cancer center launched its first cancer clinical trial for a “smart drug” over telehealth, Becker’s Hospital Review reported. The virtual trial used a drug that targets a gene leading to mutations in pancreatic cancer. Patients were shipped the drug, participated in telehealth visits with researchers and received blood work and imaging tests from their local oncologists.
Telehealth for remote cancer care yields high patient satisfaction
Radiation treatments for cancer have a high travel burden, with patients needing to come to a medical center every day for a number of weeks. Physicians at Memorial Sloan Kettering designed a remote radiation oncology care model in which a patient could receive radiation at a cancer center closer to their home and receive initial consults, treatment planning and other management via telehealth, according to an article in TechTarget.
In a retrospective study of nearly 3,000 such patients, 98% of patients rated their satisfaction with the program as good or very good. As an added bonus, out-of-pocket savings for spared travel totaled $612,913 ($466 per patient) and estimated carbon dioxide emissions decreased by 174 metric tons.
Telehealth satisfaction may vary by race
Ongoing challenges with telehealth visits remain for some users, however. One study that polled some 773 people with cancer about their telehealth experiences at two academic health systems found that Black respondents perceived telehealth visits as less useful for determining health needs and asking questions, and that telehealth visits were less easy for understanding their health care providers and connecting, compared to non-Black respondents. They also were more likely to respond that telehealth visits were less private.
Resources
- Finally, Congress Passes American Relief Act, 2025, Including a 90-Day Telehealth Extension — CTeL blog post.
- Congress looks set to extend telehealth and hospital-at-home flexibilities — Healthcare IT News.
- Which Kaiser, UCSF patients are using telehealth more — Becker’s Health IT.
- Despite state restrictions, Wisconsinites are receiving abortions via telehealth — Wisconsin Public Radio.
- Nebraska pilots EMS telemedicine in ambulances, and solo EMTs are happy — Healthcare IT News.
- How OSU cancer center is revolutionizing clinical trials through telehealth — Becker’s Hospital Review.
- Patient safety, satisfaction soar with remote care management — TechTarget.
- Cancer patient satisfaction with telehealth differs by race — TechTarget.
- How research can guide efforts to close the digital divide — TechTarget.
