The House of Representatives passed the Senate Amendment to H.R. 5371, the Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2026, sending the measure to the President. President Trump subsequently signed this bill into law, formally ending the 43-day government shutdown. The bill provides a CR through January 30, 2026 at FY 2025 funding levels and provides full-year FY 2026 funding for the Agriculture Department, the Food and Drug Administration, the Legislative Branch, military construction projects, and the Veterans Affairs Department.  

Here are some highlights:

• The legislation retroactively restores the COVID-19 era Medicare telehealth flexibilities through January 30, 2026, as if they had never lapsed. For home health agencies, this reinstates the waiver of originating site and geographic requirements under section 1834(m), allowing face-to-face encounters to occur broadly via telehealth. For hospice providers, the required encounter prior to a third or subsequent benefit period may again be completed via telehealth by a hospice physician or nurse practitioner. These flexibilities previously expired on September 30, 2025.  
• The legislation renews $2 million in funding for Medicare hospice surveys, originally included in the IMPACT Act of 2014, to ensure hospices are surveyed at least every 36 months.
•  The legislation waives the Statutory PAYGO requirement through 2026, zeroing out PAYGO scorecard, which included $3.4 trillion in deficit spending resulting from the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBA). Without this waiver, providers would have been subject to an additional sequestration cut of roughly 4% to Medicare payments. 
• The full-year appropriations for the Veterans Administration will provide more certainty regarding the ongoing stability of VA health services. Included in the CR through January 30, 2026, is the Department of Defense, which funds TriCare. During the shutdown, TriCare was unable to process and pay medical claims for services and this will allow reimbursement for services provided from October 1, 2025 through the end of the CR.

Additional details are published in the National Alliance for Care at Home Alliance Daily article.