{"id":345532,"date":"2025-12-13T01:50:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T01:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/345532\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T01:50:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T01:50:09","slug":"medicare-is-ending-this-important-service-in-2026-what-recipients-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/345532\/","title":{"rendered":"Medicare is ending this important service in 2026: What recipients need to know"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nearly 70 million Americans<\/a> rely on Medicare for healthcare coverage \u2014 90% of which are people aged 65 years and older. <\/p>\n

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Medicare expanded telehealth coverage so beneficiaries could see doctors, therapists, and other practitioners from home without traveling to a healthcare facility.<\/p>\n

But soon, that convenience will come to an end. <\/p>\n

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently updated its Telehealth FAQ for FY 2026<\/a>, confirming that many pandemic-era telehealth flexibilities will end on Jan. 30, 2026, unless Congress intervenes. <\/p>\n

For now, beneficiaries can continue telehealth visits from home, but after Jan. 31, 2026, CMS will revert to pre-pandemic rules:<\/p>\n

Medicare beneficiaries will generally need to be in a medical facility in a rural area to qualify for telehealth coverage.Some practitioners will lose Medicare telehealth privileges, including physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, and audiologists, Other telehealth home services and payment rules will also return to stricter limits.<\/p>\n

Telehealth flexibility has allowed Medicare recipients to meet with practitioners for virtual care from the comfort of wherever they are for nearly six years. <\/p>\n

With the flexibilities set to expire, many patients and clinicians may need to plan for in-person visits or alternative care arrangements starting in 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly 70 million Americans rely on Medicare for healthcare coverage \u2014 90% of which are people aged 65…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,9041,253,57523,122690,2824],"class_list":["post-345532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-health-insurance","tag-healthcare","tag-medical-debt","tag-open-enrollment","tag-prescription-drugs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}