WASHINGTON, D.C., Jan. 20, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Medicare’s expanded telehealth coverage flexibilities are currently scheduled to expire on January 30, 2026. As Congress approaches this deadline, we urge policymakers to extend these flexibilities to prevent disruptions to health care access and allow time to evaluate longer-term, evidence-informed approaches to telehealth delivery and workforce sustainability.
Workforce shortages are now a primary barrier to mental health care access nationwide. Telehealth is a critical lever for expanding access to behavioral health care because it helps stabilize a strained workforce by increasing efficiency, supporting team-based care, and reducing treatment delays.
That impact is most visible in rural and underserved communities where persistent clinician shortages, alongside financial and transportation barriers, make in-person care difficult or impossible. In small communities, stigma and a lack of privacy around in-person mental health visits may deter people from seeking care at all.
When Medicare supports appropriate telehealth use for seniors, it also shapes access for the estimated 165 million Americans with employer-sponsored insurance and their families and helps define state regulations that govern telehealth access for Medicaid patients.
Congress already recognized the value of telehealth by making many of the flexibilities for behavioral health permanent. But if Congress allows Medicare telehealth flexibilities for physical health care to expire, on Jan. 31, health care systems will be forced to navigate conflicting rules that fragment care delivery.
That fragmentation strains the already overextended workforce by limiting how scarce clinicians and care teams use telehealth to extend capacity, coordinate care, and keep patients stable between visits. The availability of tele-behavioral health can only be compromised by rules that perpetuate a two-tier system of care that forces systems to navigate competing regulations and reimbursement systems. The artificial divide between mental and physical health ignores the reality that people experience their health as whole human beings, not two policy categories.
While the Path Forward coalition recognizes the political reality necessitating an extension of telehealth flexibilities, permanence is the long-term solution. Temporary extensions hinder investment and access to care by introducing unnecessary and unwarranted uncertainty in the face of proven, successful solutions. A permanent extension of telehealth flexibility is long overdue. The health of Americans depends on it.
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“As unprecedented demand for mental health services continues, telehealth is essential to delivering timely, high-quality psychiatric care. Extending Medicare telehealth flexibilities protects patient access, and provides stability for a workforce under historic strain.”
— Marketa M. Wills, MD, MBA, CEO & Medical Director, American Psychiatric Association
“States are on the front lines of addressing behavioral health workforce shortages, and policy uncertainty makes that work harder. Telehealth flexibility allows states and providers to stretch limited workforce capacity, reach underserved communities, and plan care delivery with more stability. Letting these policies lapse would disrupt state systems just as they are working to rebuild and strengthen the behavioral health workforce.”
— Zack Stoycoff, Executive Director, Healthy Minds Policy Initiative
“In a state as vast as Texas, telehealth is essential for the delivery of mental health services and has proven effective through both numerous rigorous studies and decades of patient experience. Today, telehealth supports gold-standard, team-based models like the Collaborative Care Model by making it easier to deploy scarce clinical expertise where it is needed most. Extending telehealth flexibilities is essential to strengthening the mental health workforce and helping all Americans with mental health needs reclaim their lives and live healthily again.”
— Andy Keller, PhD, President and CEO, Meadows Institute
“Medicare telehealth policy has downstream effects for the millions of Americans covered through employer-sponsored insurance. Preserving telehealth flexibility supports timely access to mental health care, which keeps employees engaged in the workforce.”
— Shawn Gremminger, President and CEO, National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions
“Expansion of telehealth has opened up new opportunities for people who have struggled to obtain mental health care, improving access for many Americans. As an organization that represents lived experience, we know that people depend on the extension of telehealth flexibilities to get well and stay well, and ensuring ongoing availability of telehealth options is critical to helping individuals and families in need of care. Telehealth flexibilities are a critical component of the continuum of care to ensure no person gets left behind.”
— Daniel H. Gillison, Jr., CEO, National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
“Telehealth is a critical tool for community-based providers, including Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics, to meet rising demand amid workforce shortages. Extending telehealth flexibilities helps providers maintain access, continuity, and quality of care for the communities they serve.”
— Chuck Ingoglia, President and CEO, National Council for Mental Wellbeing
“Addiction care doesn’t happen in isolation. It’s increasingly delivered through integrated, team-based models that rely on telehealth to function. Without stable telehealth policy, we risk disrupting routine screening, follow-up care, and workforce capacity for substance use disorder treatment. Federal policymakers must treat telehealth as core infrastructure for modern addiction care, not a temporary exception.”
— Kevin Roy, Chief Public Policy Officer, Shatterproof
Path Forward is a coalition of health care purchasers, clinician associations, health systems, philanthropists, and health-related nonprofits united by one goal: ensuring equitable access to quality mental health and substance use care.
Juliana Keeping Path Forward 202-743-5536 juliana@pathforwardcoalition.org