We ask you to join AOTA to advocate for Congress to pass two crucial pieces of legislation before the end of March. They must extend the ability of occupational therapy practitioners (OTPs) to provide services via telehealth in Medicare , and they must reverse the 2025 cuts to Medicare outpatient payments.  Congress had previously agreed on a bi-partisan bill that would do both of these things, but the effort failed in December as the 118th Congress ended. Now the 119th Congress must pass that or similar legislation.

Telehealth: 

The use of telehealth to provide a wide array of services, including occupational therapy, has grown exponentially since 2020 when Congress enacted waivers to expand the list of practitioners that can provide these services to Medicare beneficiaries to include occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants (OTPs). These waivers have been extended repeatedly; however, they are set to expire on March 31 unless Congress acts. The House Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means Committees voted last year to extend these waivers through December 31, 2026; however, Congress only extended telehealth waivers for 3 months as the year ended. If legislation is not passed before the new March deadline, OTPs will no longer be able to provide services via telehealth under Medicare on April 1, 2025.  

Medicare Payments for Outpatient Therapy:

The 2025 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS), which sets payment rates for outpatient occupational therapy services, included a 2.8% reduction to the “conversion factor.” The conversion factor is a number used by CMS to determine how much every provider is paid, and this reduction decreases the payment rate for all healthcare clinicians providing Medicare outpatient services. 

This cut represents the fifth straight year of cuts to Medicare payments which have hit occupational therapy especially hard. Although in each of these 5 years until now, Congress has reduced the proposed cuts, they have never eliminated them. For 2025, AOTA advocacy helped to secure a small increase to payment rates specific to occupational therapy, but the overall cut to Medicare payments meant that OT services received a 2% reduction in payment for 2025. The bi-partisan draft legislation which was set for passage in December would have increased the conversion factor by 2.5% which would have resulted in OT services receiving a 0.5% increase in reimbursement for 2025.

Congress, however, failed to enact this legislation in 2024, and the MPFS cuts went into effect.  Rep. Greg Murphy, R-NC, and a bi-partisan group of Representatives have introduced the Medicare Patient Access and Practice Stabilization Act (H.R.879) that would reverse these cuts and provide added reimbursement to compensate for their having been in place since January 1. The bill would also increase payments to reflect increased provider costs related to the Medicare Economic Index (MEI). Congress must pass this or similar legislation, or the cuts will remain in place throughout 2025.

Join our efforts:

With your help, our advocacy has been successful in the past.  Now Congress needs to act before the end of March to extend telehealth waivers and reverse the MPFS cuts. They must hear from their constituents that these issues are of critical importance.