Telemedicine Insurance Coverage: Who's Cutting Benefits

The ground beneath telemedicine insurance coverage in 2026 is anything but stable. What began as a broadly celebrated expansion of virtual care access during the COVID-19 pandemic has evolved into a fractured, carrier-by-carrier patchwork — one where the benefits a policyholder enjoyed in 2024 may look starkly different today.

In early February 2026, a bipartisan budget deal that ended the most recent federal government shutdown included a provision extending Medicare’s home telehealth benefit through December 31, 2027, offering temporary relief to millions of beneficiaries. But that legislative lifeline obscures a far more complex story unfolding at the commercial insurer level, where carriers are quietly tightening coverage criteria, narrowing reimbursable conditions, and dropping digital health services that many patients had come to rely on.

The stakes are significant. Prior to the pandemic, fewer than 7 percent of Medicare patients used telehealth services in any given quarter. By the second quarter of 2020, that figure surged to nearly 47 percent. While utilization has since moderated to approximately 13 percent of original Medicare beneficiaries by end of 2023, that still represents a doubling of pre-pandemic usage — a permanent behavioral shift that insurers now face pressure to accommodate, contain, or shed.

The American Medical Association documented that 80 percent of physicians were using telehealth services by 2022, up from just 14 percent in 2016, with nearly 70 percent expressing a desire to continue Infectious Disease Advisor. That physician enthusiasm is colliding head-on with cost-containment priorities at the nation’s largest private payers.

Understanding who is cutting what — and why — requires separating the federal Medicare framework from the commercial and Medicare Advantage markets, where individual carriers exercise considerably more discretion. The policy disruptions of late 2025 and early 2026 have created an environment where a patient’s access to virtual care can depend entirely on which plan they hold, which state they live in, and which condition they are managing. For policyholders navigating their options in the health insurance marketplace, the need for side-by-side benefit comparison has never been more urgent.

Key Updates and Developments in Telehealth Coverage

The past eight months have produced a sequence of policy actions, reversals, and temporary fixes that have left patients, providers, and insurers operating under sustained uncertainty.

The Federal Shutdown and Its Telehealth Fallout

The most dramatic recent event came when Medicare telehealth flexibilities lapsed on January 30, 2026, as federal government funding expired. During the four-day shutdown that followed, Medicare reverted to pre-2020 restrictions that excluded most home-based telehealth appointments. This was the second such lapse in rapid succession — a 43-day government shutdown in late 2025 had already disrupted access significantly, prompting patients with scheduled telehealth appointments to travel to physical offices or simply forgo visits.

A Brown University analysis of electronic medical records found that fee-for-service telemedicine visits dropped 24 percent nationally during just the first 17 days of that 2025 shutdown, with several states recording declines approaching or exceeding 40 percent.

Congress had previously extended telehealth flexibilities through January 30, 2026, when President Trump signed the Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act in November 2025 — with retroactive coverage backdated to October 1, 2025, to address the gap period created by the shutdown.

The February 2026 budget deal ultimately extended home telehealth for Medicare through December 31, 2027, providing some longer-term clarity. But the repeated coverage lapses have already damaged provider planning capacity and patient confidence.

CMS 2026 Physician Fee Schedule: What Changed

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finalized its Calendar Year 2026 Physician Fee Schedule (PFS), which took effect January 1, 2026. The 2026 PFS made behavioral health telehealth audio-only visits permanently reimbursable — a meaningful protection for patients who lack video capability or broadband access. CMS also finalized new remote patient monitoring codes that expand flexibility for shorter monitoring periods of 2 to 15 days and recognize briefer patient engagement time, designed to align RPM reimbursement with real-world clinical use. The overall direction of CMS policy has been toward expansion and modernization — a direction that now stands in visible contrast to commercial payer behavior.

The UnitedHealthcare RPM Rollback: A Case Study in Coverage Conflict

No single insurer development has drawn more attention in the telehealth benefits space than UnitedHealthcare’s announced plan to dramatically restrict remote patient monitoring coverage beginning January 1, 2026. The nation’s largest private insurer announced it would limit RPM reimbursement to two conditions only: chronic heart failure and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy.

Every other condition — including general hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, and COPD — would lose RPM coverage altogether, affecting millions of patients who had come to depend on connected devices to manage chronic conditions between physician visits.

The clinical and legal backlash was swift. Legal experts called the move an aggressive interpretation of an MA plan’s responsibilities. Emily Cook, a lawyer at McDermott Will and Emery who helped draft Medicare Advantage regulations, described it as “a far more restrictive policy than the type of limitations we’ve seen in the past”. The pushback worked — partially. On December 17, 2025, UnitedHealthcare sent members an email announcing a delay to the policy, stating the new effective date would be communicated later in 2026.

The temporary reprieve should not be mistaken for a policy reversal. UnitedHealthcare stated the RPM restriction would proceed at some point in 2026. For patients managing hypertension, diabetes, or COPD through connected home devices, the question is not whether coverage will be cut, but when — and whether competing insurers will follow suit. One cost analysis demonstrated annual total savings of $1,308 per patient across three chronic disease programs combining heart failure, hypertension, and Type 2 diabetes. Curtailing that coverage does not eliminate the cost — it shifts it downstream toward emergency and inpatient services.

This situation illustrates why carefully comparing health insurance plans before enrollment is so critical. RPM coverage terms vary enormously across carriers, and what appears in a summary of benefits may not survive the next annual policy update.

Medicare Advantage: Where the Real Coverage Divergence Lives

The Medicare Advantage market is where the 2026 telehealth story becomes most complex — and most consequential. MA plans operate under CMS oversight but retain considerable latitude to design benefits beyond original Medicare’s baseline. The result in 2026 is a spectrum of telehealth generosity that ranges from meaningful expansions to quiet contractions, often within the same carrier family depending on geography.

UHC’s Dual Track

UnitedHealthcare’s October 6, 2025 announcement confirmed it would maintain expanded MA telehealth coverage for in-home medical and mental health services through 2026 — even after original Medicare ended certain home telehealth services on September 30, 2025. Both audio-only and audio-video visits remain eligible for MA enrollees when the service appears on the CMS Medicare Telehealth List and is delivered by an in-network provider.

Mental health telehealth retains its in-person visit exemption for MA enrollees. This positions UHC as simultaneously one of the more protective carriers on behavioral health telehealth and one of the most restrictive on remote patient monitoring — a posture that reflects the fragmented, service-by-service nature of payer decision-making.

The Broader MA Market Contraction

The broader MA market is undergoing significant structural contraction that indirectly affects telehealth access. Aetna discontinued approximately 90 MA plans across 34 states for 2026. Humana exited multiple MA markets in 2025, affecting over 100,000 enrollees. When major health systems simultaneously drop MA contracts — UNC Health suspended in-network status with Humana, WellCare, and Health Care Service Corp plans; Mass General Brigham ended most primary care in-network relationships with UnitedHealthcare and BCBS Massachusetts MA plans; Iowa Specialty Hospitals ended acceptance of all MA plans except four carriers — the downstream effect on telehealth access compounds. Patients who can no longer access their established provider in-network lose telehealth continuity along with in-person continuity.

Understanding the difference between plan types matters considerably here. Policyholders choosing between PPO, HMO, and EPO structures should specifically ask how each plan handles out-of-network telehealth, since MA PPO plans frequently carry different telehealth rules than HMO products under the same carrier.

Telehealth Parity Laws: The State-Level Safety Net

One of the most important consumer protections in the telemedicine insurance coverage ecosystem operates at the state level. As of February 2026, 44 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands have private payer laws addressing telehealth reimbursement. Among those, 23 states have explicit payment parity laws requiring insurers to reimburse telehealth services at the same rate as equivalent in-person visits.

Coverage parity and payment parity are distinct concepts that often get conflated. Coverage parity mandates that insurers cover telehealth services if they cover the equivalent service in person. Payment parity goes further — requiring identical reimbursement rates between virtual and in-person delivery of the same service. Not all states with coverage parity have payment parity, and some states’ parity laws contain carve-outs, sunset clauses, or apply only to mental health services.

A notable recent example of state-level erosion: New York’s telehealth payment parity statute expired on April 1, 2024, and was not renewed. Illinois’ payment parity provision is set to expire January 1, 2028, with mental health and substance use disorder telehealth retaining parity beyond that date. These expiration dates are financially consequential for patients who have structured their care around virtual access.

Audio-Only Telehealth: A Permanent Divide Emerging

The treatment of audio-only telehealth is one of the sharpest fault lines in 2026 coverage policy. CMS permanently extended audio-only for behavioral health services under Medicare. Audio-only for non-behavioral health services, however, requires the patient to demonstrate inability or unwillingness to use video. Eighteen states have adopted laws making audio-only telehealth coverage permanent for private health plans. States including Georgia, Hawaii, and Nebraska require coverage for audio-only predominantly for mental health services.

States like Kentucky and Tennessee restrict audio-only coverage to situations where patients lack adequate broadband access. For elderly, rural, and lower-income policyholders who cannot reliably access video platforms, these distinctions determine whether care is accessible at all.

Comparing Telehealth Benefit Structures Across Major Plan Types

Plan Type	Telehealth Video Coverage	Audio-Only	Mental Health Telehealth	RPM Coverage	Key Restriction
Original Medicare	Covered (home, through 12/31/2027)	Behavioral health only (permanent)	Covered, in-person req. waived through 2027	Covered; new 2026 codes active	Some geographic/originating site rules remain
Medicare Advantage (UHC)	Expanded in-home coverage maintained 2026	Eligible if on CMS list; patient declines video	In-person not required for mental health	Heart failure and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy only (pending)	RPM rollback delayed, not canceled
ACA Marketplace Plans	Varies by carrier and state parity law	Varies by state	Covered under MHPAEA where applicable	Carrier-specific	No federal mandate for universal coverage parity
Employer-Sponsored (Large Group, 51+)	Most plans maintain coverage	Limited; varies by state	Required under MHPAEA	Carrier-specific	Self-insured plans may bypass state parity laws
Medicaid	Expanding in most states	18 states require permanent coverage	Broadly covered post-PHE	Expanding in most states	Varies by state Medicaid program
Short-Term Health Plans	Rarely covered	Rarely covered	Excluded or severely limited	Typically excluded	Not subject to ACA mandates

Mental Health Telehealth: The One Area Holding Firm

Among all virtual care categories, mental health telehealth has demonstrated the greatest regulatory protection in 2026 — and the greatest consumer demand. Behavioral health continues to dominate virtual visit volume, with FAIR Health reporting that telehealth utilization overall remains more than 20 times higher than pre-2019 levels.

The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 prevents health plans from applying more restrictive limitations on mental health and substance use disorder benefits than on medical or surgical care. Under MHPAEA, large group employer plans and ACA marketplace plans cannot impose telehealth-specific copays or visit limits for mental health that would not apply to equivalent physical health services. The Telemental Health Care Access Act, introduced bipartisanly in Congress in 2025, would further ensure coverage of mental and behavioral health services furnished through telehealth under Medicare.

CMS has permanently allowed audio-only behavioral telehealth for Medicare patients who cannot or will not use video. The February 2026 budget deal extended relevant mental health telehealth flexibilities through 2027. The practical implication for policyholders: mental health telehealth is among the most robustly protected categories of virtual care across most plan types, though the specific cost sharing, network requirements, and platform restrictions still vary significantly by carrier.

For those assessing health plan costs, the overall cost structure of a plan — including telemedicine copays and platform fees — should be evaluated as part of the full benefit comparison, not just the monthly premium.

Store-and-Forward and Remote Patient Monitoring: Declining Coverage Territory

Beyond live synchronous video visits and audio-only consultations, two additional telehealth modalities face specific coverage headwinds in 2026: store-and-forward technology and remote patient monitoring.

Store-and-forward allows patients to submit clinical data — images, diagnostic readings, patient history — asynchronously to a provider for later review. Medicare covers store-and-forward only in federal demonstration programs for Alaska and Hawaii. State Medicaid programs vary widely. Private insurers typically require specific CPT code justification and may restrict coverage to dermatology, radiology, and ophthalmology. Policyholders who receive store-and-forward diagnoses through specialist platforms should verify coverage before the consultation.

Remote patient monitoring is facing its most significant commercial rollback in the technology’s short coverage history. The contrast between CMS policy — which expanded RPM codes and reimbursement flexibility in the 2026 PFS — and UHC’s planned restriction is a live illustration of the tension between federal health policy goals and commercial insurer cost-control imperatives. One analysis demonstrated annual total savings of $1,308 per patient across chronic disease RPM programs; the UHC policy effectively argues that those savings do not justify the program’s cost.

State-by-State Snapshot: Where Telehealth Parity Laws Offer the Strongest Protections

State	Payment Parity Law	Audio-Only Covered	Mental Health Parity	Key Notes
California	Yes	Yes	Yes	Broad parity; includes physical and behavioral health
Colorado	Yes	Yes	Yes	Covers all medically necessary telehealth at parity
Georgia	Yes	Yes (mental health)	Yes	Prohibits mandatory prior in-person consultation
Iowa	Yes	Varies	Yes	Mental health parity explicitly at same rate as in-person
Illinois	Yes (expires 1/1/2028 for non-MH)	Varies	Permanent for mental health	Parity expires for non-mental health in 2028
New York	Expired 4/1/2024; not renewed	Varies	Yes (under MHPAEA)	Commercial parity lapsed; mental health protected federally
Kentucky	Varies	Yes (where broadband lacking)	Yes	Audio-only tied to broadband access justification
Tennessee	Varies	Yes (where broadband lacking)	Yes	Similar broadband-based trigger as Kentucky
Texas	Coverage parity only	Limited	Yes	No payment parity law for commercial plans
Florida	Coverage parity only	Varies	Yes	No explicit payment parity mandate

Sources: CCHP Parity Database, CHG Healthcare 2026 Toolkit

Out-of-Network Telehealth: A Growing Cost Trap

As health system after health system exits MA contracts — documented extensively in the wave of 2026 contract terminations — the risk of inadvertent out-of-network telehealth visits is rising. Out-of-network telehealth is subject to entirely different cost sharing in most plan types. MA PPO plans generally cover only Medicare-covered services from out-of-network providers, and behavioral health providers who are in-network for in-person visits may occupy different network tiers for telehealth platform-delivered visits.

Platform fees represent another emerging cost element. Several telehealth platforms charge a per-visit technology fee on top of the standard medical consultation cost. These fees may not be listed on the standard benefits summary, and their treatment under the plan’s cost-sharing structure varies. Some plans count platform fees toward the deductible; others treat them as a non-covered charge. Policyholders comparing plans — particularly those weighing short-term versus long-term health insurance — should specifically ask how the plan handles platform fees for telehealth visits and whether virtual care visits from marketplace-branded apps count as in-network care.

Consumer Workarounds: Maintaining Virtual Care Access Despite Rollbacks

The shifting telemedicine insurance coverage landscape does not leave consumers without options. Several strategies can meaningfully preserve virtual care access even as certain insurer benefits narrow.

Review the Summary of Benefits and Coverage for telehealth-specific language. Plans are legally required to disclose telehealth benefit details. Look specifically for: whether video-only or audio-only visits are covered, which service categories qualify, any visit limits, applicable copay levels, and whether the plan uses a proprietary telehealth platform or allows any licensed provider.

Verify provider network status for telehealth specifically. A provider who is in-network for in-person visits may be classified differently in the plan’s telehealth network, particularly in MA products. Request written confirmation rather than relying on verbal assurances from phone representatives.

Understand your state’s parity law protections. The Center for Connected Health Policy maintains a publicly accessible database of state telehealth laws. If a plan denies coverage for a telehealth service that would be covered in person, and the state has a coverage parity law, that denial may be appealable through the plan’s internal and external review process.

For RPM users, ask about Chronic Care Management alternatives. UnitedHealthcare’s planned RPM rollback would strand many patients managing hypertension, diabetes, and COPD. Chronic Care Management (CCM) and Advanced Primary Care Management (APCM) codes offer related monitoring and coordination services that may remain covered even where direct RPM reimbursement narrows.

During open enrollment, use benefit comparisons that include telehealth terms. The standard premium-versus-deductible comparison no longer captures the full picture of plan value for high telehealth users. Policyholders who rely on virtual care should weight telemedicine copay, RPM coverage, mental health telehealth terms, and audio-only eligibility as significant plan selection factors alongside traditional cost variables.

Congressional Bills That Could Change the 2026 Telehealth Picture

The legislative calendar for 2026 includes several bills with meaningful telehealth implications. The bipartisan Telehealth Modernization Act (H.R. 5081/S. 2709), introduced in September 2025, would extend Medicare telehealth flexibilities through September 30, 2027. The Telehealth Expansion Act of 2025 would permanently allow first-dollar coverage of virtual care under high-deductible health plans paired with a Health Savings Account — a provision that would directly benefit millions of employer-sponsored plan enrollees. The CONNECT for Health Act, introduced by Senator Schatz with 59 bipartisan cosponsors, would expand Medicare telehealth coverage and make COVID-19 era flexibilities permanent.

None of these bills had been enacted as of April 2026. The Congressional Budget Office’s cost-scoring methodology, which relies heavily on historical utilization data and does not fully account for long-term savings from early intervention and reduced emergency utilization, has been a persistent legislative obstacle. The AMA has publicly called for a more robust CBO analysis that incorporates downstream savings from chronic disease management and reduced hospitalizations.

What This Means for Policyholders Comparing Health Plans in 2026

The telemedicine insurance coverage battle of 2026 is a benefits design conflict fought plan by plan, state by state, and condition by condition. No universal federal protection guarantees commercial plan coverage parity for all telehealth services. UnitedHealthcare simultaneously extends behavioral telehealth coverage for MA enrollees while planning to restrict RPM for chronic conditions. State parity laws protect consumers in some markets while others operate with minimal regulatory guardrails.

For policyholders with high healthcare utilization — particularly those managing chronic conditions, mental health needs, or rural access challenges — the telemedicine terms buried in a plan’s benefits summary are as financially significant as the deductible or the out-of-pocket maximum. Understanding how PPO, HMO, and EPO structures handle out-of-network telehealth, how short-term plans handle virtual care differently from ACA-compliant plans, and how Medicare Advantage plans are diverging from original Medicare coverage baselines are essential components of informed plan selection in 2026. Those who choose plans solely on premium price risk discovering coverage gaps at precisely the moments when virtual care is most needed.

Closing Analysis

The telehealth benefits erosion underway in 2026 is not a clean rollback — it is a fragmentation. Some services are being permanently protected while others are being quietly eliminated. Behavioral health telehealth is gaining statutory permanence. Remote patient monitoring is facing its first major commercial rollback. Audio-only telehealth is becoming a jurisdictionally determined privilege rather than a universally covered service. Medicare Advantage plans are simultaneously the most innovative and the most unpredictable segment of the virtual care coverage market, offering supplemental telehealth benefits that original Medicare does not provide while also pioneering restrictions that original Medicare has not contemplated.

The broader pattern is one that insurance consumers have encountered before in other benefit categories: post-crisis normalization, where emergency-era expansions face fiscal pressure and carriers begin engineering utilization control through coverage design rather than explicit denial. The difference with telemedicine is the speed and scale of adoption. Millions of Americans restructured their care delivery around virtual access — choosing providers, selecting medications, managing chronic conditions, and attending mental health therapy through platforms that assume telehealth coverage. Removing or narrowing that coverage without adequate notice creates genuine health disruption.

For consumers, the actionable response is proactive and specific. During the next enrollment window, examine not just premiums and deductibles but the actual telehealth benefit language — visit limits, modality eligibility, RPM conditions covered, platform fee treatment, and out-of-network telehealth cost sharing. For those currently managing chronic conditions through remote monitoring, confirm now whether the carrier has issued any 2026 policy updates affecting RPM reimbursement. For mental health telehealth users, understand whether the plan’s parity protections come from state law, federal MHPAEA, or a carrier-level commitment — because only the first two carry legal enforcement weight if the insurer changes course.

The next round of annual enrollment decisions will effectively determine how much virtual care access Americans can count on in 2027 and beyond. The carriers that preserve and expand telehealth benefits in 2026 are making a long-term bet on outcomes-based value. The carriers pulling back are betting that short-term cost containment outweighs the downstream costs of deferred and disrupted care.

The evidence, both clinical and actuarial, suggests the former bet is the sounder one — but consumers need not wait for the market to resolve that argument. Comparing plans carefully, using tools that surface the full cost picture, and consulting licensed professionals where the benefit details are complex remain the most reliable paths to coverage security in a rapidly changing virtual care environment.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is telemedicine insurance coverage, and how does it work in 2026?

Telemedicine insurance coverage refers to a health plan’s obligation to reimburse virtual care visits — conducted by video, phone, or asynchronous data transmission — under the same or similar terms as in-person care. In 2026, coverage varies significantly by plan type, carrier, state law, and service category. Medicare has extended home telehealth through December 31, 2027, but commercial insurer and Medicare Advantage terms differ substantially by plan.

2. Which health plans are cutting telehealth benefits the most in 2026?

UnitedHealthcare announced the most significant telehealth-adjacent rollback by planning to limit remote patient monitoring reimbursement to heart failure and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, though implementation was delayed pending further notice as of late December 2025. Multiple Medicare Advantage carriers, including Aetna and Humana, have exited markets entirely — an indirect but significant reduction in available virtual care access for affected enrollees.

3. Does Medicare cover telehealth in 2026?

Yes. A bipartisan budget deal signed in early February 2026 extended Medicare’s home telehealth benefit through December 31, 2027, including for beneficiaries who access virtual care from their home regardless of geographic location. Audio-only telehealth for behavioral health services is permanently covered. The CMS Telehealth FAQ, updated February 26, 2026, contains the most current Medicare coverage details.

4. What is telehealth payment parity and does it apply to my plan?

Payment parity requires insurers to reimburse telehealth visits at the same rate as equivalent in-person services. As of early 2026, 23 states have explicit payment parity laws for private payers, and 44 states plus DC, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands have some form of telehealth reimbursement law. Self-insured employer plans may be exempt from state parity mandates because they operate under federal ERISA law rather than state insurance regulation.

5. What is remote patient monitoring and is it covered by insurance in 2026?

Remote patient monitoring uses connected devices to track patient health data between clinical visits. Medicare expanded RPM coverage through new 2026 PFS codes. UnitedHealthcare planned to restrict commercial RPM coverage to heart failure and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy in 2026, but delayed that policy in December 2025. Coverage terms for RPM under other commercial carriers vary significantly and should be confirmed before initiating a monitoring program.

6. Are mental health telehealth visits covered under most health plans in 2026?

Mental health telehealth is among the most robustly protected categories of virtual care in 2026. The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act prevents large group employer plans and ACA marketplace plans from imposing more restrictive limits on mental health telehealth than on medical telehealth. Medicare permanently allows audio-only behavioral health telehealth visits, and the in-person requirement for home-based mental health telehealth under Medicare has been waived through 2027.

7. What is the difference between synchronous and store-and-forward telehealth, and are both covered?

Synchronous telehealth involves real-time communication between patient and provider, via video or phone. Store-and-forward allows patients to submit clinical data asynchronously for later provider review. Medicare covers synchronous telehealth broadly but limits store-and-forward to federal demonstration programs in Alaska and Hawaii. Most commercial plans cover synchronous telehealth but cover store-and-forward inconsistently, typically limiting it to radiology, dermatology, and ophthalmology. Policyholders using specialist platforms that rely on store-and-forward should verify coverage before the consultation.

8. Can I still use audio-only telehealth calls if I don’t have video capability?

It depends on the plan type, state, and service category. Under Medicare, audio-only is permanently covered for behavioral health services for patients who cannot or will not use video. Among private payers, 18 states have laws requiring permanent audio-only coverage, though some limit it to mental health or to patients lacking reliable broadband access. Checking both the specific plan’s evidence of coverage document and the state’s current telehealth statute provides the most reliable answer.

9. How do I know if my current health plan is cutting telehealth benefits?

Review the most recent Summary of Benefits and Coverage issued by the plan, and look specifically for any plan amendment notices or mid-year benefit change communications from the insurer. For Medicare Advantage plans, CMS requires annual notice of benefit changes during the Annual Enrollment Period. Calling the member services line to specifically ask about RPM, audio-only, and out-of-network telehealth terms will surface changes that may not be prominently disclosed in standard benefit summaries.

10. What telehealth legislation is pending in Congress that could affect coverage in 2026?

Multiple bipartisan bills are pending as of April 2026. The Telehealth Modernization Act (H.R. 5081/S. 2709) would extend Medicare flexibilities through September 30, 2027. The Telehealth Expansion Act of 2025 would permanently allow first-dollar coverage of virtual care under high-deductible health plans with HSAs. The CONNECT for Health Act would make COVID-19 era flexibilities permanent under Medicare. None of these had been enacted as of the publication date of this article.