Despite the ongoing federal government shutdown and federal policy changes, Penn Medicine is continuing to provide virtual health care to Medicare patients.
Temporary waivers for telehealth services — first instituted during the COVID-19 pandemic — recently expired following congressional gridlock over a budget deal and the subsequent government shutdown. Penn Medicine is continuing to offer virtual healthcare services — and temporarily suspending billing — as the health system awaits a new budget deal to reinstate approval waivers.
“Congress has been vocal in its support of telehealth and its value, and we are hopeful that legislation will be passed to ensure permanent Medicare telehealth coverage and flexibilities once the government reopens,” a Penn Medicine spokesperson told The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Temple Health will also continue to provide telehealth visits to Medicare patients for several weeks. Main Line Health has attempted to convert virtual visits to in-person ones or postpone until a budget agreement can be reached and virtual health policy can potentially be reinstated.
The changes in availability of virtual health care will affect patients on traditional Medicare, which insures many Americans over the age of 65 as well as recipients of Social Security Disability Insurance.
Telehealth services rose in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic and have remained popular since, especially in mental health care and recurring routine screenings from healthcare providers. During the pandemic, the services were a medically necessary precaution because they prevented older and immunocompromised patients from having to visit doctors’ offices and hospitals filled with patients potentially infected with COVID-19.
After the pandemic, telehealth services were permanently adopted by Medicare, Medicaid, and numerous private insurers due to continued demand. In the first half of 2025, over four million Medicare-insured Americans received virtual health care, according to Brown University’s Center for Advancing Health Policy through Research. Mental health care for Medicare patients was made permanent after the pandemic.
In certain medical specialties — palliative care, for example — and for certain populations, virtual health care has been shown to be as successful as in-person visits, and can solve accessibility and transportation barriers to health care.
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Additionally, many patients in rural communities rely exclusively on virtual health care.
“In rural America, it’s often telemedicine or no medicine at all,” David Newman — who serves as the chief medical officer of virtual care at Sanford Health in South Dakota — told the American Medical Association.
According to a recently filed lobbying disclosure, Penn lobbied the federal government on issues relating to higher education, financial aid, healthcare education, and telehealth. The disclosure — which was for the third quarter of 2025 — indicated that the University had its highest single-period lobbying expenditure on record.
