CONNECT for Health Act of 2025
The CONNECT for Health Act of 2025 would significantly expand and normalize telehealth services within the Medicare program (Title XVIII). It seeks to remove long-standing barriers, broaden who can provide telehealth, where telehealth can originate, and how telehealth is paid for, while strengthening program integrity and adding beneficiary/provider supports, quality measures, and transparency. Key changes include ending geographic restrictions, expanding eligible originating sites and eligible providers, special rules for Federally Qualified Health Centers and Rural Health Clinics and Native American facilities, and removing certain in-person visit requirements for telemental health. The bill also adds public health emergency waivers for telehealth, allows telehealth use in hospice recertification, enhances oversight and enforcement related to telehealth, and requires new reporting and quality-measure activities. Overall, it aims to boost access, reduce barriers to telehealth adoption, and improve data-driven oversight and quality in telehealth care. If enacted, many provisions would take effect beginning around enactment or on specified future dates (for example, geographic removal applies to telehealth furnished after October 1, 2025; other changes begin on enactment or upon the Secretary’s implementation), with ongoing oversight, reporting, and annual or multi-year reviews built in.
Key Points
- 1Removing barriers to telehealth coverage
- 2- Elimination of geographic restrictions for Medicare telehealth (effective for telehealth furnished after October 1, 2025).
- 3- Expansion of originating sites (where a telehealth visit can be conducted) and expansion of who may furnish telehealth services.
- 4- Revisions benefiting Federally Qualified Health Centers and Rural Health Clinics, plus Native American health facilities (with special rules and ongoing payment considerations).
- 5Expanding who can provide telehealth
- 6- The Secretary would be allowed to waive limits on which types of practitioners may furnish telehealth if it’s clinically appropriate, with public comment, safeguards, and periodic reassessment (every up to 3 years).
- 7Telemental health and emergency waivers
- 8- Repeals the six-month in-person visit requirement for telemental health services.
- 9- Provides a framework to waive telehealth requirements during public health emergencies, and extends flexibility during emergencies.
- 10Hospice and other service adaptations
- 11- Allows telehealth in hospice recertification processes during and after the emergency period, with a GAO study evaluating impacts within 3 years.
- 12Federally Qualified Health Centers and Rural Health Clinics financing
- 13- New treatment of telehealth services furnished by FQHCs/RHCs after the initial emergency period, aligning telehealth services with outpatient or clinic-based payment structures.
- 14Native American facilities
- 15- Expands originating-site relief for Indian Health Service facilities, tribal facilities, and Native Hawaiian health care facilities starting in 2026.
- 16Program integrity and oversight
- 17- Clarifies fraud and abuse rules around technologies provided to beneficiaries for telehealth, with new flexibility but safeguards.
- 18- Adds new funding for HHS Inspector General to enhance telehealth audits and enforcement (fiscal years 2026–2030).
- 19- Establishes outlier billing detection for telehealth, requiring notifications to providers, public aggregate data, and targeted education, plus referral mechanisms to Medicare contractors.
- 20Beneficiary and provider supports, quality, and data
- 21- Beneficiary engagement: requires resources, guidance, and training on accessible telehealth for individuals with limited English proficiency and people with disabilities, with attention to age and sociodemographic differences.
- 22- Provider supports: creates educational resources and training on telehealth requirements, privacy/security, and engaging underserved populations.
- 23- Quality of care: mandates a review to ensure telehealth is included in quality measures, with guidance on measurement approaches and a 2-year reporting timeline to Congress.
- 24- Data and transparency: CMS must post telehealth data quarterly, including service use by population, geography, and impact on expenditures, plus other outcome data.