Chicago – November 06, 2025
The use of telehealth in Medicare began in earnest during the pandemic and quickly became popular. Nearly 7 million people on Medicare use telehealth services every year to see their doctors, but the federal shutdown put an abrupt halt on payments covering those services. Specifically, the temporary pandemic-era allowances that have been repeatedly renewed to enable payments, could no longer be reauthorized. Without that administrative approval, Medicare patients — and their doctors — have been left in a very complicated and confusing limbo.
“It’s a continual disaster for access,” says Kyle Zebley, senior vice president of public policy at the American Telemedicine Association.
Even large hospital systems, he says, do not have a large financial cushion to be able to continue offering services without government reimbursement. Plus, there is no clear guidance that providers will be reimbursed for telehealth services during the shutdown.
Hundreds of hospitals across the country have also suspended their investments in what’s often called “hospital at home” programs, which offer more elaborate remote monitoring and care that enable patients with more serious conditions to remain at home. Zebley says those patients have been discharged or checked into hospitals if they need continued care.
Zebley says this temporary halt to telehealth services is especially frustrating, because it is expected to return, eventually, and then hopefully made permanent. It’s convenient, efficient, and beloved across the political spectrum too, he says. “There’s broad-based bipartisan support from the furthest left member of the Democratic caucus, of the furthest right member of the Republican caucus – nobody is anything other than universally supportive of maintaining these services. And yet here we are.”
