Prior authorization, telehealth bills gain steam despite shutdown

Modern Healthcare – Thursday, November 6, 2025
By Michael McAuliff

The bitter standoff over government funding in Congress has not stopped some health policy bills from attracting greater bipartisan support.

Legislation that would regulate health insurance companies’ prior authorization requirements and measures to expand telehealth coverage under Medicare are the most notable examples of bills that have gained backers during the historic standoff on Capitol Hill.

The Senate has been nearly frozen since the government shut down on Oct. 1, and the House left Washington Sept. 19 and hasn’t returned.

Yet below the surface, lawmakers have been signing on as cosponsors to popular, bipartisan healthcare measures. The lead supporters aim to assemble enough allies that their bills have good chances to pass once Congress resumes normal work, whenever that may be.

The Improving Seniors’ Timely Access to Care Act of 2025 would set in law policies rolled out late in the administration of President Joe Biden that require Medicare Advantage insurers to speed up prior authorizations.

The health insurance sector announced a voluntary initiative to curb prior authorizations in June and President Donald Trump’s administration has looked into new rules governing the practice.

Nevertheless, most members of Congress have decided pledges and incremental change aren’t enough, and they haven’t let the shutdown stop them from signaling their stance.

Since the House was last in session, 22 more members have cosponsored the prior authorizations bill, pushing the number of backers to 225, which is more than a majority.

In the Senate, four lawmakers have added their names to counterpart prior authorizations measure, pushing the total to 64, above the 60 votes needed to stop potential filibusters.

The reason, senators said, is they want to make sure insurers are following through.

“It’s always nice to codify, because if you codify, there’s never backtracking,” said Sen. Dr. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and sits on the Finance Committee, the two panels with jurisdiction over most of the healthcare system. Cassidy was an early supporter of the legislation.

“If people are working in good faith, everyone should be on board with this,” said Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), a Finance Committee member who joined the bill on Sept. 30, one day before the shutdown began. “If the folks in the industry are advocating for better care, it seems like this could be one of the drivers to codify something like that.”

Legislation to expand telehealth in Medicare also appears to have benefited from the shutdown, which has focused lawmakers attention on the issue.

Fee-for-service Medicare coverage of many telehealth services ended Oct. 1 because the legal authority expired that day. Before then, a bill to extend and expand that authority called the Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies for Health Act of 2025, or CONNECT Act, had languished. Many members expected the Medicare telehealth policy would be temporarily extended via a stopgap spending bill, then permanently addressed later in the year in an oft-discussed healthcare package.

But since the telehealth authority lapsed, a flood of lawmakers has registered support for the measure. The House bill now has 127 cosponsors, 101 of whom signed on after the lower chamber recessed in September. The Senate tally started high, and now stands at 66 cosponsors, well above the filibuster threshold, including two senators who joined on Sept. 30.

Some bills seem to have garnered more backers amid the legislative standoff on spending largely because they are not controversial and can stand as something lawmakers can point to as helping constituents.

Other bills that have gained traction in recent weeks include a measure to increase Medicare physician reimbursements, breast cancer treatment legislation, a bill to expand Medicare coverage of chiropractic care, pediatric cancer research legislation, a bill to expand Medicare coverage of cancer screenings and a 9/11 healthcare funding measure.

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