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Stanford Health Care and Kaiser Permanente are just two health care providers on the Peninsula that are pausing certain telehealth visits for Medicare patients as a result of the ongoing federal government shutdown, which is now the longest in U.S. history at 36 days and counting.
That’s because pandemic-era telehealth waivers expired on Oct. 1 after Congress failed to pass a spending bill in time, shutting down the federal government and the possibility of extending telehealth flexibility. The waivers previously saw bipartisan support and were extended and retroactively paid after prior government shutdowns, according to the California Medical Association. Physicians can still choose to bill Medicare for telehealth services, but for now, there is no guarantee that providers and hospitals that do so will be paid.
The California Medical Association advised providers to consider pausing telehealth visits and switching to in-person visits when possible — and it seems that the former is a more popular alternative among local hospitals.
Stanford Health Care paused new scheduling of Medicare telehealth visits from Oct. 14 through Nov. 30, according to a statement provided by senior media relations manager Lisa Kim. If the shutdown ends sooner than that, Stanford will “adjust these dates as necessary.”
“We remain fully committed to ensuring continuity and quality of care and are contacting each patient whose visit needs to be rescheduled,” the statement reads.
While Stanford provides health care to many in the greater Peninsula region, patients as far away as the Tri-Valley in the East Bay have taken to platforms like Nextdoor to share concerns about appointments being cancelled.
“My experience so far is doctor’s offices are not aware of this,” wrote one Menlo Park user on Nextdoor.
Kaiser Permanente also operates several medical centers throughout the Bay Area, including in Redwood City, Mountain View and San Mateo. According to a statement provided by senior media relations representative Antonia Ehlers, Kaiser paused telehealth visits for some patients on Oct. 1. For patients who have Medicare Advantage through Kaiser, telehealth visits are still available.
According to Kaiser, most of its patients are enrolled in Medicare Advantage. Some, however, are enrolled in traditional Medicare or have traditional Medicare for part of their coverage, while also being enrolled with Kaiser Permanente. The telehealth policy is applicable to a very small number of its overall Medicare membership, Kaiser said.
Sutter Health, which operates the Palo Alto Medical Foundation near downtown, did not respond to a request for comment about the status of telehealth visits at its medical centers.
However, several patients on Nextdoor wrote that they successfully completed scheduled telehealth visits at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, which is an affiliate of Sutter Health, as recently as mid-October.
There are a few exceptions that allow a Medicare patient to continue receiving telehealth visits despite the shutdown. Patients seeking telehealth treatment for mental health and substance use disorder and rural patients are still eligible, according to the California Medical Association.
Additionally, patients enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state’s name for federal Medicaid, will not be impacted, the California Medical Association clarified.
“According to the California Department of Health Services, Medi-Cal payments are not affected by the shutdown at this time,” the CMA statement reads. “Medi-Cal telehealth claims are also not affected by the expiration of the federal waivers, as telehealth parity is written into statute and is not tied to Medicare.”
But that still leaves millions of mostly older adults nationwide who rely on telehealth visits vulnerable to lapses in their health care.
In California, more than 300,000 Medicare patients accessed telehealth in the first quarter of 2025, around one in five of all Medicare recipients, according to data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
As the federal shutdown drags on, it remains unclear when the telehealth waivers will be reinstated, and whether providers who billed Medicare during that time will receive any backpay for their work.
Clarification: This story was updated to include additional information from Kaiser Permanente about the effect of the new policy on patients with various types of insurance.
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