Advancing Access to Telehealth Act

On November 25, 2025, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) introduced HR6296, the Advancing Access to Telehealth Act, to make permanent the Medicare telehealth flexibilities that were set to expire on September 30, 2025. The bill strikes all sunset language tied to the COVID-19 public health emergency and replaces it with permanent statutory authority. It permanently allows patient homes as originating sites, rural health clinics and FQHCs as distant sites, and expands eligible practitioners to include audiologists, physical and occupational therapists, and speech-language pathologists.

HR6296 is an authorization bill that does not itself appropriate funds. The money trail runs through Medicare's existing budget authority under Title XVIII of the Social Security Act. CMS will continue reimbursing telehealth visits under its fee schedule, but now without a termination date. The Congressional Budget Office has not yet scored this specific bill, but prior CBO estimates for extending these flexibilities have been in the low billions over ten years — since the services are already being delivered and paid, permanent authorization primarily shifts the budgetary baseline rather than adding new spending.

The true structural impact is for pure-play virtual care platforms. $TDOC and $AMWL derive a majority of their revenue from visit volume and platform subscription fees. The single biggest bear case for both stocks has been the cliff: investors refused to assign terminal value to a revenue stream that could vanish on October 1, 2025. Permanent authorization transforms that government-dependent revenue into a perpetual, growing cash flow stream. Diversified diagnostics companies $LH and $DGX benefit indirectly from telehealth driving lab orders, but face their own headwinds from PAMA reimbursement cuts and have already been dismissed from the primary beneficiary list.

Market price data through April 30, 2026 confirms the thesis. $TDOC trades at $5.72, up 4.95% over 30 days but still 41% below its 52-week high of $9.77, indicating the sunset overhang has not been fully priced out yet. $AMWL trades at $6.16, up 17.11% over 30 days and 33% below its 52-week high of $9.15, showing stronger momentum. The divergence suggests the market is incrementally repricing AMWL for the permanent flexibilities while discounting TDOC due to operational challenges.

The legislative path: HR6296 has been referred to the Energy and Commerce Committee and Ways and Means Committee. Early stage with only two sponsors. Medicare telehealth is one of the few genuinely bipartisan health policy issues — these exact flexibilities were included in the 2025 year-end funding bill on a short-term basis. Permanent extension has widespread support from the AMA, AHA, and patient advocacy groups. The most likely path is inclusion in a larger Medicare extender package or end-of-year omnibus. Timeline: the sunset already expired September 30, 2025, but CMS has continued operations under Administrative flexibilities. The clock is ticking — Congress must act, and this bill is the legislative vehicle for the permanent fix.