The longest government shutdown in US history ended on November 12, 2025.

Some of us may have learned, the hard way, that it eliminated the COVID-era Medicare telehealth option. Raise your hand if you tried to schedule or keep a virtual doctor visit in October or November for the person you care for and were told, “Sorry, you’ll have to bring them into the office if you want Medicare to cover it.”

Telehealth visits are covered by Medicare

The good news is, Medicare is back to covering telehealth visits for its beneficiaries, at least through January 30, 2026. And for anyone who did manage to schedule a telehealth visit for a loved one during the shut-down, Medicare will cover it retroactively. Whew! Because there’s strong bipartisan support for telehealth, it’s reasonable to believe that Congress will pass legislation to extend the current telehealth flexibilities in January. 

The loss of covered telehealth appointments presents an inconvenience to most Americans. But its impact is dire for homebound Medicare beneficiaries and their family caregivers. Telehealth appointments save the person we care for the ordeal and discomfort of travel. And they save us time we likely should be spending at work and money spent on gas and parking. 

If we live in a rural area, telehealth appointments often mean the difference between accessing care at all and going without. 

Also, in order to receive covered home health care through Medicare, a patient has to have a face-to-face doctor appointment (either in-person or via telehealth) so the doctor can prepare a detailed home health referral order. Here at RubyWell, we help determine eligibility for the Medicare home health benefit and guide families through the referral order process. During October, our team found that some families simply couldn’t pull off the in-person doctor appointment. So they had to put their plans for accessing home health services on hold.

Home health care has shown to improve patient outcomes and lower overall healthcare costs, For instance, patients who receive home health care are admitted to the hospital half as often as patients with similar health conditions who don’t receive home health care. And when we look at the overall healthcare costs of patients with similar health conditions and risk factors, those who receive home health care save Medicare between $2,700 and $3,300 per member per month compared to those who don’t receive home health care. So there were significant down-stream effects to this interruption in telehealth coverage. 

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Telehealth visit coverage has also resumed for hospice patients’ required face-to-face encounters prior to their third or subsequent benefit period.

Acute care hospital at home is covered by Medicare

The Acute Care Hospital at Home program was also halted during the shut down. As a result,  some hospital at home patients had to return to hospitals to receive care. That meant higher health care costs, more exposure to germs and disease, and more time and money spent by family caregivers who had to travel back and forth to a hospital to visit a loved one. 

Thankfully, now hospitals can return to delivering inpatient-level services in a patient’s home. So patients get to receive the care they need in the comfort and safety of home (not to mention good home cooking). And family caregivers can spend less time on the road.

RubyWell will keep an eye on these Medicare provisions as the January 30, 2026 deadline approaches. We’ll be sure to share what we learn with family caregivers here as soon as we learn it.

We hope you found the information here helpful. If you know other family caregivers, share the link to this article with them.