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Last year as the COVID-19 pandemic forced many providers to close their doors for in-person care, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and Congress acted quickly to provide waivers, administrative relief, and reimbursement for telehealth services so patients could receive care safely at home.
Many of these flexibilities are tied to the public health emergency (PHE) declaration that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has the authority to declare and extend under Section 319 of the Public Health Service Act. The PHE was most recently extended by HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra for another 90 days on April 21. It is anticipated that HHS will keep the PHE in place for at least the remainder of 2021, and possibly longer, though permanent telehealth policy changes will need to come from Congress. Congress typically works better under deadlines, so the end of the PHE will be an action-forcing event th