ANA President on Telehealth: Don’t Let Patient Care Hang by a Thread | Opinion

Picture a 78-year-old widow in rural Mississippi who gave up her car keys last spring. Or a cattle rancher three hours from the nearest cardiologist. Or a young mother whose anxiety has become too heavy to carry alone, with no therapist taking new patients within 50 miles. For each of them, telehealth is not a convenience. It is the care they can actually receive.

But Medicare coverage for that care is still temporary. Since the pandemic, Congress has kept telehealth alive with one short-term extension after another, most recently through the end of 2027. Every deadline brings the same uncertainty for patients and the same scramble for the clinicians who serve them. That is no way to run a health care system. Congress should end the cycle by passing the bipartisan CONNECT for Health Act (H.R. 4206) to permanently allow patients to see their preferred clinicians through telehealth.

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Our seniors have already chosen. In 2019, almost no Medicare beneficiaries used telehealth. By 2023, nearly one in four did. Older adults managing diabetes, heart failure or limited mobility have found that a video visit from home helps them stay on track instead of falling behind. We should not take that lifeline away from them.

Where you live should not decide whether care is available. Under Medicare’s permanent rules, telehealth is still largely limited to patients in designated rural areas who travel to an approved facility to log on. That defeats the purpose. The CONNECT for Health Act removes those geographic limits and permanently allows community health centers and rural health clinics to provide telehealth. These are the providers rural America already depends on.

Mental health care cannot wait. Unless Congress acts, starting in 2028 Medicare will return to requiring an in-person visit within six months before a patient begins mental health treatment by telehealth, and every 12 months after that. For someone in crisis, or someone with no provider nearby, that rule would turn a phone call for help into a wall. This bill would tear that wall down.

The case for telehealth is not complicated. It’s about using technology wisely: to improve outcomes, bring down the cost of care, and reach patients where they already are. When chronic conditions are managed early and consistently, patients avoid the emergency visits and hospital stays that drive costs up for everyone.

Nurses see this every day. We are the ones monitoring patients remotely, coaching them through new medications and often answering the first call. We also know access alone is not equity. About 12 million Americans can’t use telehealth because their broadband is missing or too slow. Permanent telehealth policy must go hand in hand with investment in connectivity and digital literacy.

Telehealth enjoys something rare in Washington: real bipartisan support. A coalition of nearly 250 House members from across the political spectrum has signed on as cosponsors of this bill. Congress must seize this momentum to make sure that patients have permanent access to care wherever they reside.

🤔 How does telehealth fit into the care you provide? Share your thoughts in the comments below.