Stopgap spending bill extends telehealth flexibility, Medicare payment relief still awaits

Congress narrowly avoided a government shutdown late Friday night by passing the American Relief Act of 2025. The stopgap spending bill, pared down from earlier versions, only lasts until March. Notably missing from this version is a provision to mitigate the impact of the decreased 2025 Medicare conversion factor. However, there is still hope — it took until March 2024 for Congress to pass the legislation that partially offset the decrease in this year’s conversion factor. The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) will continue advocating for Medicare payment relief to be included in the next spending bill.

Despite its shortcomings, the American Relief Act did include a three-month extension of telehealth flexibilities (through March 31, 2025). They include the following:

• Allowing all Medicare beneficiaries to receive telehealth services from any location, including the beneficiary’s home,
• Extending telehealth services for federally qualified health centers and rural health centers,
• Delaying in-person requirements for mental telehealth, and
• Allowing audio-only telehealth services.

Medicare recently expanded its definition of interactive telecommunications to include two-way, real-time audio-only technology for any telehealth service provided to a beneficiary in their home if the physician is technically capable of using audio-video, but the patient is not able to or does not consent to use of video. (See Medicare’s 2025 list of telehealth services.)

While CPT introduced a new set of telemedicine codes for 2025, Medicare will continue using existing codes. Additional billing and coding information is available on the AAFP’s telehealth coding page and information about the new CPT codes is included in FPM’s 2025 Medicare and CPT Update.

As with conversion factor relief, securing permanent extension of these telehealth flexibilities will remain a priority for the AAFP.

— Erin Solis, Manager, Practice & Payment, American Academy of Family Physicians

Posted on Dec. 23, 2024