Critical Access Hospitals are Omitted from Telehealth Extension

 

Critical-access hospitals (CAH) will no longer be able to bill Medicare for telehealth services when there is not a public health emergency. For reasons not yet clear, the omnibus appropriations bill enacted last week excluded CAHs, which primarily serve rural areas, in the telehealth extension which extended Medicare coverage of telehealth for five months after the end of the public health emergency for several types of providers, including FQHCs.