Around November, Kivo Health, a telehealth provider of pulmonary rehabilitation services, will need to start warning older patients that their sessions may not be covered by Medicare in the new year.
Kivo was founded in 2022, and it’s covered by Medicare thanks to telehealth flexibilities passed by Congress during the Covid-19 pandemic. Those flexibilities expanded what kinds of care people on Medicare can receive over telehealth — but they are set to expire at the end of 2024. Legislation to extend them for two years is snaking through Congress, and the time crunch is starting to create problems for regulators, providers like Kivo, and their patients, months before the deadline.
Victor Sadauskas, Kivo’s chief executive, told STAT he’s less worried about the immediate impact on his business than the stress and anxiety that the uncertainty will create for patients.
