Telehealth for All Act of 2025.

Plain English Breakdown

The official source material does not provide details on how the reports will be used or if there is funding for creating these new reports.

Telehealth for All Act of 2025

This act requires the California Department of Health Care Services to produce reports every two years starting in 2028, analyzing telehealth use by Medi-Cal patients and identifying disparities.

What This Bill Does

• Requires the State Department of Health Care Services to make a report about telehealth use for people on Medi-Cal every two years beginning in 2028.
• The reports must look at how often telehealth is used, by whom, and where it's being used.
• Reports need to show if there are differences in who uses telehealth based on where they live or their background.

Who It Names or Affects

• People who use Medi-Cal health care services
• The California Department of Health Care Services

Terms To Know

Medi-Cal

A government program that helps low-income people pay for medical care.

Telehealth

Using technology like video calls or apps to provide health care services remotely.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify how the reports will be used after they are made.
• It is unclear if there will be funding for creating these new reports.
• There is no specific date when this act becomes effective, only that it starts in 2028.

Official Summary Text

AB 688, Mark González.
Telehealth for All Act of 2025.
Existing law establishes the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services, under which qualified low-income individuals receive health care services. The Medi-Cal program is, in part, governed and funded by federal Medicaid program provisions.
Under existing law, in-person, face-to-face contact is not required under the Medi-Cal program when covered health care services are provided by video synchronous interaction, asynchronous store and forward, audio-only synchronous interaction, remote patient monitoring, or other permissible virtual communication modalities, when those services and settings meet certain criteria.
Existing law required the department, on or before January 1, 2023, to develop a research and evaluation plan that, among other things,
proposes strategies to analyze the relationship between telehealth and access to care, quality of care, and Medi-Cal program costs, utilization, and program integrity. The department created that plan in December of 2022 and published the Biennial Telehealth Utilization Report in April of 2024.
This bill, the Telehealth for All Act of 2025, would require the department, commencing in 2028 and every 2 years thereafter, to use Medi-Cal data and other data sources available to the department to produce analyses in a publicly available Medi-Cal telehealth utilization report. The bill would authorize the department to include those analyses in each of the department’s Biennial Telehealth Utilization Reports, as specified.
The bill would require the analyses to address telehealth access and utilization data, including various metrics on telehealth visits and claims, disaggregated by geographic, demographic, and social
determinants of health categories to identify disparities. The bill would require the department to identify additional data elements for inclusion in future reports to help to identify and address access-to-care issues or provide greater insight into utilization of telehealth modalities.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF