CONNECT for Health Act: Medicare Telehealth Bill and Its Status

The CONNECT for Health Act is bipartisan federal legislation that would permanently expand Medicare coverage of telehealth by eliminating geographic restrictions, allowing patients to be treated at home, and broadening the providers and facilities that can deliver remote care. The Senate version, S. 1261, was introduced on April 3, 2025, by a bipartisan group of 60 senators led by Brian Schatz and Roger Wicker.¹ The House companion, H.R. 4206, was introduced on June 26, 2025, by Representative Mike Thompson and has attracted 239 cosponsors.² Neither chamber has voted on the bill.

The full name is the Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies for Health Act. It has been introduced in every Congress since 2016, and several of its earlier provisions have already become law in the areas of mental health, stroke care, and home dialysis.¹ What remains is the harder core: a permanent replacement for the temporary pandemic-era flexibilities that Congress keeps extending in short increments.

What the Bill Would Change

The CONNECT for Health Act rewrites Section 1834(m) of the Social Security Act, the provision that governs Medicare telehealth reimbursement.³ Under current permanent law, a Medicare telehealth visit is generally limited to patients located at a qualifying medical facility in a designated rural area, receiving care from a narrow list of provider types. The bill would strike those limits and lock in the broader access that has existed under emergency waivers.

No more rural-only rule. Beneficiaries anywhere in the country could receive Medicare-covered telehealth, not just those in designated rural areas.¹
Home as an originating site. Patients could permanently receive telehealth from home rather than having to travel to a hospital or clinic to connect.⁴
Federally Qualified Health Centers and Rural Health Clinics. Both would be permanently authorized to serve as distant-site telehealth providers, a role they have played only temporarily under waivers.⁴
More types of providers. The list of health professionals who can bill for telehealth would expand, and the HHS Secretary would gain authority to waive practitioner-type limits when doing so is “clinically appropriate.”⁵
No in-person visit for telemental health. Current law requires an in-person visit before, and periodically during, a course of mental health telehealth. The bill removes that requirement.¹
Standing waiver authority for future emergencies. The Secretary could waive telehealth restrictions in any area covered by a declared public health emergency, without waiting for Congress to pass a new law.⁵
New data and oversight requirements. HHS would publish additional data on telehealth use and quality and would gain explicit authority to flag outlier billing patterns and run provider education programs.⁵

One thing the bill does not do: it does not address audio-only telehealth, meaning phone visits without video. Coverage of audio-only care is the subject of separate legislation, including the Telehealth Coverage Act of 2025.⁶

Why It Matters Now

Before the pandemic, telehealth accounted for 0.1 percent of Medicare Part B visits. By 2023, 24 percent of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries received at least one telehealth service.⁷ That shift happened under emergency waivers that Congress has renewed on short cycles rather than made permanent.

The most recent renewal came in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2026, signed by President Trump on February 3, 2026, which extended most Medicare telehealth flexibilities through December 31, 2027.⁸⁹ Without further congressional action, the following expire at the end of 2027:

Home-based non-behavioral telehealth for Medicare patients.
The suspension of the rural-location requirement.
Expanded eligibility for physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, and audiologists.
Medicare payment for audio-only non-behavioral services.
FQHC and RHC authority to serve as distant sites for non-behavioral services.

If Congress does nothing, Medicare telehealth reverts on January 1, 2028, to the pre-pandemic framework in 42 U.S.C. § 1395m and 42 C.F.R. § 410.78, which generally confines coverage to patients at medical facilities in rural areas.⁹ Behavioral health is the exception. Congress permanently lifted geographic and originating-site restrictions for behavioral health telehealth in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, so those services will remain broadly available regardless of what happens with the CONNECT bill.⁸

Cost and Oversight Concerns

The Congressional Budget Office has not scored the CONNECT for Health Act itself.¹⁰ The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, using an earlier CBO score of a five-month extension in 2022, has estimated that making the flexibilities permanent could cost Medicare roughly $25 billion over ten years, even assuming no further growth in telehealth use.¹¹ For context, CBO scored the two-year extension in the 2026 appropriations law at $3.8 billion for 2026 through 2028.

Cost is not the only sticking point. The HHS Office of Inspector General has investigated numerous schemes in which companies used the telehealth model to bill Medicare for medically unnecessary genetic tests, durable medical equipment, and drugs, often with no real provider-patient relationship.¹² A September 2024 OIG report on remote patient monitoring found that about 43 percent of Medicare enrollees receiving the service did not get all three required components, and that four of the OIG’s five recommendations to CMS remain open.¹³

The Government Accountability Office reported in 2022 that CMS lacked complete data on telehealth services delivered in homes or by audio only, and that five percent of providers accounted for more than 40 percent of all telehealth services after the waivers took effect. GAO also found that CMS had not comprehensively assessed the quality of telehealth services and, as of March 2026, had no plans to do so.¹⁴ The bill’s data and outlier-billing provisions respond in part to those findings, though skeptics argue stronger safeguards should be in place before the flexibilities are made permanent.

Where the Bill Stands

The Senate bill has 60 cosponsors, the number needed to overcome a filibuster, split roughly evenly between the two parties.¹²¹⁵

Even with that support, movement has been slow. As of mid-2026, H.R. 4206 has not been referred to committee, received a hearing, or reached a floor vote.¹⁶ The 2027 expiration date gives Congress a runway to act, but it also relieves the immediate pressure. The pattern of the last several years has been shorter extensions rather than permanent legislation, and that pattern is likely to continue until the cost and oversight debates are resolved.

1
U.S. Senator Brian Schatz. Schatz, Wicker Lead Bipartisan Group of 60 Senators in Introducing Legislation to Expand Telehealth Access
2
Congress.gov. H.R. 4206 Cosponsors
3
Connect with Care. Federal Advocacy
4
U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith. Senate Passes Bill to Extend Medicare Telehealth Access Until 2027
5
Congress.gov. S. 1261 Bill Text
6
eHealth Virginia. What’s Next for Medicare Telehealth
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Congress.gov. H.R. 4206 Bill Text
8
Telehealth.HHS.gov. Telehealth Policy Updates
9
CMS. Telehealth FAQ
10
KFF. What to Know About Medicare Coverage of Telehealth
11
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Fiscal Considerations for the Future of Telehealth
12
HHS OIG. Telehealth Featured Reports
13
HHS OIG. Additional Oversight of Remote Patient Monitoring in Medicare Is Needed
14
GAO. GAO-22-104454
15
AACI. AACI Endorses CONNECT for Health Act
16
GovTrack. H.R. 4206