Does Medicare Cover Telehealth Visits? Costs, Rules, and 2028 Changes

Yes, Medicare covers telehealth visits. Through December 31, 2027, Medicare Part B pays for a broad list of services delivered by video, and in many cases by audio-only phone, no matter where you are in the United States, including your home. After you meet the Part B deductible, you pay the same 20% coinsurance you would owe for the same visit in person. Those rules were most recently extended by Section 6209 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2026, signed on February 3, 2026.¹

What Kinds of Visits Are Covered

Medicare Part B covers telehealth services that would ordinarily take place in person, as long as they appear on CMS’s Medicare Telehealth Services List. The list is updated every year through the Physician Fee Schedule.² Common examples include:

Office visits and consultations with a physician or other eligible provider.
Outpatient mental and behavioral health care, including psychotherapy, depression screening, cognitive assessments, and substance use disorder treatment.
Chronic disease management such as diabetes self-management training, medical nutrition therapy, and cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation.
Advance care planning, caregiver training, and speech therapy.

For calendar year 2026, CMS added multiple-family group psychotherapy, group behavioral counseling for obesity, an infectious disease add-on code, and auditory osseointegrated sound processor services. CMS also dropped the old split between “provisional” and “permanent” services; everything currently on the list is considered permanent for now.³

Two lighter options sit alongside full telehealth visits. E-visits let you communicate with your provider through an online patient portal. Virtual check-ins are brief real-time calls, typically ten minutes or less, by phone or video.⁴

Who Can See You Virtually

A wide range of health professionals can bill Medicare for telehealth, subject to state licensing. That includes physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurse midwives, certified nurse anesthetists, clinical nurse specialists, clinical psychologists, clinical social workers, registered dietitians, and nutrition professionals.⁵ Through December 31, 2027, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, and audiologists can also bill for telehealth. That authority ends on January 1, 2028 unless Congress extends it.⁶

Federally Qualified Health Centers and Rural Health Clinics can serve as telehealth providers too. For behavioral health that role is permanent; for other telehealth it runs through December 31, 2027.⁷

What You’ll Pay

For most telehealth visits, your out-of-pocket cost is identical to an in-person visit. Under Original Medicare, you pay the annual Part B deductible and then 20% coinsurance on the Medicare-approved amount, and Medicare pays the other 80%.⁴ The exact dollar figure depends on the service, the provider’s charges, and whether the provider accepts assignment.

Medigap plans help with that 20%. All ten standardized plans cover Part B coinsurance in some form. Plans K and L pay 50% and 75% of it; the other plans cover it in full.⁸

Where You Can Be, and Phone Visits

Before the pandemic, Medicare generally required telehealth patients to be at a medical facility in a rural area. That restriction is waived through December 31, 2027. You can take the visit from anywhere in the country, including your own home.⁹

Audio-only calls also count during that same window. Through December 31, 2027, Medicare covers telehealth by phone for both behavioral and non-behavioral services when you are at home. A narrower rule is permanent: any telehealth service may be delivered by phone if the provider is capable of video but you cannot use video technology or do not consent to it. The provider has to document that video was available and you chose or needed audio-only.¹⁰

Mental and Behavioral Health

Behavioral health telehealth sits on stronger ground than the rest. Under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, geographic and originating-site restrictions for behavioral and mental health telehealth, including substance use disorder treatment, are permanently removed. You can receive these services at home indefinitely, and providers can deliver them by phone on a permanent basis.⁹

There is a catch that begins after December 31, 2027. Starting January 1, 2028, a new mental health telehealth patient will need an in-person visit within the six months before their first virtual appointment, and at least one in-person visit every twelve months after that. If you were already receiving mental health telehealth on or before December 31, 2027, you count as established and are exempt from the initial six-month requirement, though the annual in-person visit still applies.⁶ Through December 31, 2027, both in-person requirements are waived.⁹

If You Have Medicare Advantage

Medicare Advantage plans have offered broader telehealth than Original Medicare for years. A policy change enabled by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 let MA plans include telehealth as a basic benefit starting in plan year 2020, so enrollees can use telehealth from home without paying extra premiums.¹¹ By 2021, 95% of MA enrollment was in plans offering telehealth as a basic benefit, up from 71% the prior year.¹²

Because MA plans are paid a set amount per enrollee rather than per service, many reduce or waive cost-sharing on virtual visits. Covered services and cost-sharing rules vary by plan, so check your plan documents for specifics.⁴

What Changes on January 1, 2028

Unless Congress extends the flexibilities again, most of them expire on January 1, 2028. At that point non-behavioral telehealth reverts to pre-pandemic rules: you would generally need to be at an approved facility (a physician’s office, hospital, skilled nursing facility, or community mental health center) in a qualifying rural area. Physical therapists and other allied health professionals would lose telehealth billing authority. Audio-only coverage would end for non-behavioral services, aside from the narrow permanent exception when you cannot use video.⁶ Behavioral health telehealth from home stays, subject to the in-person visit rules noted above.

Several bills would prevent that rollback. The CONNECT for Health Act (S. 1261), introduced in April 2025 with 58 bipartisan Senate cosponsors, would permanently remove geographic and originating-site restrictions and expand eligible providers. As of mid-2026, it had been referred to the Senate Finance Committee and had not been scheduled for a vote.¹³¹⁴

1
AAPC. Congress Passes Spending Bill, Extends Telehealth Flexibilities
2
CMS. List of Medicare Telehealth Services
3
CMS. Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule Summary CY 2026
4
Medicare.gov. Telehealth
5
CMS. Medicare Telemedicine Health Care Provider Fact Sheet
6
CMS. Telehealth FAQ Updated February 26, 2026
7
HHS Telehealth.gov. Billing Medicare as a Safety Net Provider
8
Medigap.com. Medicare Telehealth and Telemedicine FAQ
9
HHS Telehealth.gov. Telehealth Policy Updates
10
HHS Telehealth.gov. Medicare Payment Policies
11
CMS. CMS Finalizes Policies To Bring Innovative Telehealth Benefit to Medicare Advantage
12
PMC. Telehealth Coverage in Medicare Advantage
13
KFF. What To Know About Medicare Coverage of Telehealth
14
GovInfo. S. 1261, CONNECT for Health Act of 2025