Medicare is planning to stop coverage for telehealth in 2025—unless Congress acts by the end of 2024.
According to Medicare’s website:
Absent Congressional action, beginning January 1, 2025, the statutory limitations that were in place for Medicare telehealth services prior to the COVID-19 PHE will retake effect for most telehealth services.
This means most telehealth visits will not be covered by Medicare in 2025, unless Congress acts by the end of December 2024.
Congress must extend the COVID-era rules—and even go beyond them—since so many people rely on telemedicine to reach their medical professionals and stay on top of their conditions, symptoms, and treatments. Many people do not have the physical or mental capacity to attend appointments in person. It is much easier to do a video visit in the safety, peace, and relaxation of one’s own home, and the same quality of care is accomplished. I have been using telehealth for years, and it has stood the test of time. In fact, it has saved me much distress.
Medicare’s website also states they are rolling back coverage “to create a more equitable health care system that results in better accessibility, quality, affordability, empowerment, and innovation for all Medicare beneficiaries.”
As someone who is severely disabled, I can attest that removing coverage of telehealth services is the opposite of helpful. Rather, it will worsen my medical condition. I will have to lose sleep to get up early and go to bed late in order to attend appointments in person. This lack of sleep will exacerbate all the symptoms that already debilitate me.
I will also have to use adrenaline I do not have to force my body to get ready for appointments, travel to them, wait, and then travel back home. My autonomic nervous system cannot sustain this. Additionally, I will need to arrange for someone to drive me to appointments, and I am unsure how I will afford tolls and the new congestion pricing in New York City.
This will happen multiple times per month, as I see different doctors in various specialties to address my body’s needs. Instead of recovering and pacing myself to feel as well as possible, I will live in a never-ending cycle of crashing and recovering.
To put it simply, Medicare and Congress’ decision to remove telehealth services for those in need is disastrous. I guarantee many patients will skip appointments and stop taking medications because they cannot make it to a health care provider’s office.
Maybe this is what Medicare and Congress want—to reduce their bills.
But this is not how we take care of the sick, disabled, and elderly in this country. At least, not in the country I believe in.
We must allow people with mobility issues, energy issues, dementia, and all kinds of medical disabilities, chronic illnesses, and problems to access medical care in the way that works for them.
Congress, do your job. Serve the people who put you in power. And everyone else, let’s start a movement that cannot be stopped.
Continue Medicare’s funding of telehealth in 2025. Act now. Save lives. Improve lives. That’s all that matters.
Stephanie Marcovici is a patient advocate.
