Telehealth is Health: Celebrating Progress During Telehealth Awareness Week 2025 

Picture a patient in rural Kansas who once had to drive two hours each way to see her psychiatrist for a routine medication management visit. Today, she can connect with her provider from home and receive consistent care without sacrificing work or family time.  

Stories like hers capture the essence of this year’s Telehealth Awareness Week, with the theme: “Telehealth is Health.” Virtual care is no longer an emergency workaround. It’s an essential aspect of providing timely, accessible, and equitable treatment.  

Organized annually by the American Telemedicine Association, Telehealth Awareness Week (Sept. 14-20) is an opportunity to reflect on this transformation and the role telehealth now plays in behavioral health, chronic disease management, primary care, and other specialties.

Telehealth From Lifeline to Fixture 

Over the past five years, telehealth has shifted from being a lifeline during the COVID-19 pandemic to a permanent fixture across U.S. healthcare. 

At Integrated Psychiatric Consultants, we’ve seen firsthand how patients, providers, and organizations benefit from expanded access to specialized psychiatric care. Nearly a decade before the pandemic, IPC providers were already using telehealth to meet urgent psychiatric needs in rural communities across the Midwest.  

At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately one in four Medicare beneficiaries
utilized telehealth services, while the percentage of physicians utilizing virtual/telehealth visits grew from 14% in 2016 to 80% in 2022. Adoption has been strong, as telehealth reduces wait times and connects patients to scarce specialists. 

“Telehealth reminds us that innovative care delivery is not just about technology, but about people. It’s about helping providers deliver impactful care and ensuring patients can access care when and where they need it,” said Ryan Speier, President and Chief Operating Officer at IPC.   

In honor of Telehealth Awareness Week, we are highlighting progress along with clinical, legislative, and technological advancements that allow for care to take place outside of a physical office. 

Telehealth Awareness Matters 

The presence of telehealth in behavioral health reflects its broader role across medicine. Remote patient monitoring is expanding rapidly as an aging population drives demand for chronic disease management. The DEA has also extended flexibilities for opioid use disorder treatment, allowing buprenorphine prescribing via telehealth for up to six months without an in-person visit. While this is a major step forward, uncertainty remains for other controlled substances, leaving patients and providers in limbo. 

The pandemic drove rapid policy changes that made telehealth more accessible than ever: 

When the time comes that the waivers do expire, only provider types specifically named in the statute will remain eligible to bill Medicare for telehealth services.

Some of these wins are now permanent in behavioral health, thanks to special exceptions to Medicare law requirements. Patients receiving telemental health care do not need to be located in a rural Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA), a non-Metropolitan Statistical Area (non-MSA), or a CMS-approved telemedicine demonstration site in order to qualify.  

But as we approach the “telehealth cliff” of September 30, 2025, some wins are set to expire – including the waiver for in-person visit requirements. If Medicare patients do not meet the location-based requirements, their coverage will instead hinge on meeting the in-person visit requirements. Without congressional action, Medicare patients could lose access to audio-only visits for non-behavioral health, home-based coverage, and expanded provider eligibility. 

Telehealth is Health 

This Telehealth Awareness Week is a chance to acknowledge both progress and unfinished work. Permanent coverage for behavioral health, expanded provider eligibility, and widespread adoption by patients and clinicians have moved telehealth into the mainstream. At the same time, looming policy expirations, unsettled DEA rules, and ongoing equity and licensure barriers remind us that access is still fragile. 

Telehealth is not a temporary option or a back-up plan. It’s part of how care is delivered today. The task now is ensuring that regulation, infrastructure, and advocacy keep pace with what patients and providers already know: telehealth is health.