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Chad Ellimoottil, MD, highlights recent telehealth extension
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“For all intents and purposes, how you've been practicing telehealth currently is exactly how you'll be able to practice it until September 30," says Chad Ellimoottil, MD, MS.
Last week Congress passed the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025 (Continuing Resolution) to fund the government through the end of September, which marks the end of the fiscal year. That bill included language to extend telehealth flexibilities through the same time period. Without Congressional action, these provisions were set to expire on March 31, 2025.
In the following video, Chad Ellimoottil, MD, MS, highlights this decision and what it means for urologists, as well as where we’re headed next in terms of continued telehealth coverage. Ellimoottil is the medical director for telehealth and an associate professor of urology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
In explaining the Congressional decision, Ellimoottil noted, “For all intents and purposes, how you've been practicing telehealth currently is exactly how you'll be able to practice it until September 30.”
Leading up to that date, he says policymakers will be taking a close look at the impact that telehealth has had on clinical practice. He highlights 2 recent studies from his team at the University of Michigan that assessed spending1 and healthcare utilization2 with telehealth, 2 key concerns for continued coverage.
Overall, data showed that widespread adoption of telehealth has not led to increased health care utilization among Medicare beneficiaries, and that telehealth visits may actually reduce overall Medicare spending. Ellimoottil hopes that findings such as these will impact how telehealth is viewed in the future and will hopefully encourage a permanent policy decision in September.
REFERENCES
1. Ellimoottil C, Kulkarni AJ, Zhu Z, et al. Association between telehealth use and downstream 30-day Medicare spending. medRxiv. 2025. doi:10.1101/2025.01.31.25321423
2. Lee JD, Chun E, Chang CH, et al. Telehealth and outpatient utilization: Trends in evaluation and management visits among Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries, 2019-2024. medRxiv. 2025. doi:10.1101/2025.03.05.25323449
