The legislation would expand coverage of telehealth services through Medicare, make COVID-19 telehealth flexibilities permanent, and help patients connect more easily with doctors.
Congress is moving forward with legislation ASN strongly supports to make telehealth flexibilities that are set to expire on September 30, 2025 permanent U.S. policy. The Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies (CONNECT) for Health Act has been re-introduced in the U.S. Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support.
The bill was re-introduced on April 3 by U.S. Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and a bipartisan group of 60 Senators in total. The CONNECT for Health Act will expand coverage of telehealth services through Medicare, make COVID-19 telehealth flexibilities permanent, and make it easier for patients to connect with their doctors—all with the goal of improving health outcomes for Americans. Telehealth provides essential access to care, with nearly a quarter of Americans accessing telehealth in a given month, according to the most recent available data.
“Telehealth reflects the world we live in and is vitally important to millions of Americans” said ASN President Prabir Roy-Chaudhury, MD, PhD, FASN. “The health care system needs a clear law governing telehealth and that’s what the CONNECT for Health Act would do if passed. As a matter of fact, ASN pioneered making telehealth available to patients on home dialysis under the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018. That legislation allowed patients receiving home dialysis to opt for telehealth with their homes as the originating site and without geographic restriction. This was the first-ever instance of a patient being able to interact with their doctor from their own residence. Now, in 2025, we are urging Congress to pass the Connect Act now and not wait for provisions that have expanded telehealth access more broadly to expire.”
The CONNECT for Health Act would:
- Permanently remove all geographic restrictions on telehealth services and expand originating sites to the location of the patient, including homes.
- Permanently allow health centers and rural health clinics to provide telehealth services.
- Allow more eligible health care professionals to utilize telehealth services.
- Remove unnecessary in-person visit requirement for telemental health services.
- Allow for the waiver of telehealth restrictions during public health emergencies.
- Require more published data to learn more about how telehealth is being used, impacts of quality of care, and how it can be improved to support patients and health care providers.
ASN will keep working for passage of this important legislation and keep ASN members updated. The full text of the bill is available here .
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