Fighting for Medicare Telehealth Service Coverage in 2025

August 16, 2024

Now that the COVID-19 public health emergency has ended and all temporary federal authority will expire at year's end we need to let Congress and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) know we are qualified and capable providers of telehealth for Medicare beneficiaries. Fighting for telehealth service coverage in 2025 involves two key efforts:

1. Convincing CMS to add audiology and speech-language pathology CPT codes to the Authorized Telehealth Services list for 2025.
2. Convincing Congress to extend the ability of audiologists and SLPs to provide telehealth services beyond 2024.

In short, Congress controls who's allowed to perform telehealth services while CMS controls the types of services Medicare will cover. Many other insurers turn to CMS' fee schedule for their coverage guidelines, so this has the potential to impact more than just Medicare-enrolled providers should CMS decide to not include audiology and speech-language pathology services on its list.

How Can You Advocate?

Everyone has different advocacy interests and preferences, and that's okay! Here are a few ways you can make an impact:

• Take action. Take a couple minutes to Take Action for telehealth by going online to
  • Send a pre-written letter to your members of Congress asking them to support the Expanded Telehealth Access Act (H.R. 3875/S. 2880).
  • Sign this petition letter to CMSbefore September 3.
• Socialize the issue. Educate your friends, colleagues, and community on the impact and importance of telehealth services and encourage them to take action alongside you. This could be as simple as posting on your social media or as "fun" as throwing a party and asking all attendees to write a letter while they're there. Even if they aren't in the professions, they can also use the prewritten letter we created.
• Meet with your members of Congress. Legislators need to hear directly from their constituents. Arrange a phone, virtual, and/or in-person meeting with your federal legislators and talk to them about this issue. Take along this helpful issue brief [PDF] to back up your conversation. Need help navigating this process? Email [email protected] for help!

What Is ASHA Doing?

Though we don't control Congress or CMS, we are your partner in advocacy to try to influence these decisions.

• ASHA Advocacy will be submitting a letter to CMS during its open comment period.
• We've developed a member petition so that CMS can hear from you directly.
• We will use every opportunity possible to advocate for continued telehealth coverage. We will continue to advocate on Capitol Hill, speaking to legislators about these issues and asking them to cosponsor the Expanded Telehealth Access Act (H.R. 3875/S. 2880).
• ASHA Advocacy has written detailed summaries to help you understand CMS' 2025 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and outpatient prospective payment proposed rules.
• On top of that, we are your partner in advocacy - we're here to help you! If you want to get more involved, please reach out to us at [email protected].

What's Next?

The (sometimes frustrating) reality of advocacy is that you often have to push for a long time before you see any results. Because it's an election year, many federal legislators will spend the next few months focused on campaigning, not necessarily moving legislation along. So we likely won't see progress or know the outcomes of several bills we're supporting until late November or December. But, we still need to fight as strategically as possible going forward.