A practice should explain telehealth by visit type: which visits it offers by video, phone, or secure message, whether new patients can use them, where patients must be located, how a visit starts, and how coverage is confirmed. Each of those is a practice fact with an owner and a date. Federal sources such as Telehealth.HHS.gov explain the categories and policy changes, but the practice decides what it actually offers.
Some telehealth pages were written during the COVID-19 public health emergency, under the rules in place at the time. If yours dates from then, it may describe arrangements that have since ended, a platform the practice no longer uses, or a broader offer than the clinicians now support.
This is a content-planning article for practice owners and marketing leads. It is not legal, billing, or clinical advice. Licensure and coverage rules vary by state and by payer, so confirm the specifics with your compliance lead or counsel. Our guide to new patient access content covers the short telehealth line on the access page; this page covers the fuller explanation.
Name the type of visit, not just "telehealth"
Telehealth.HHS.gov describes several forms. Synchronous care is "a live interaction between a provider and a patient," which can be a video call, an audio-only call when "a video visit is not an option," or secure text messaging. Asynchronous care, also called store and forward, is "communication or information shared between providers, patients, and caregivers that occur at different points in time," such as images sent for evaluation. Remote patient monitoring sends data from in-home devices or patient-entered information to the provider.
Patients do not need the vocabulary, but they need the distinction. "Telehealth available" could mean a scheduled video visit with a physician or a portal message answered within a stated number of days. A portal message is not a visit, and patients plan around the two differently. Name the format, say what it is used for at your practice, and say what it is not used for.
Say which visits stay in person
The most useful sentence on a telehealth page is often the one about what still needs an office visit. Offering video visits is not the same as offering every visit by video, and patients who book the wrong format lose time on both sides. The clinicians decide which visits work remotely, and that decision belongs on the page in words they approve.
Get that list from the people who make the call. Ask the clinical lead: "Which visits do our clinicians want to see in person, and how should the page explain that without giving medical advice?" The answer might be a first evaluation, a visit that needs a hands-on exam, or a procedure, described in terms the clinicians have signed off.
Also say what happens when a clinician decides during a video visit that the patient needs to come in: whether the practice books the office visit for them, and how that second visit is handled for billing. Those are operational facts the practice already has, and patients would rather read them before the call than hear them at the end of it.
Patient location and licensure
Telehealth.HHS.gov states that "The ability to deliver health care services across state lines varies based on state regulations." It explains that a full license from a state licensing board "permits a provider to legally practice in that state," that some states allow out-of-state providers to practice telehealth through a registration, and that "Multi-state licensure compacts streamline the licensing process across states, while preserving state oversight."
For the website, that becomes a short, dated statement of where patients must be during a visit, by provider if it differs. A practice near a state line, or one whose patients travel for part of the year, is likely to hear this question. The writer should not have to work out which licenses each clinician holds; the credentialing lead supplies the list, counsel confirms how it applies, and the page states the result.
Coverage and privacy change, so date both
Medicare telehealth rules have changed since the public health emergency. Telehealth.HHS.gov says "Recent legislation authorized an extension of many of the Medicare telehealth flexibilities through December 31, 2027," that "Some of the telehealth flexibilities have been made permanent while others are temporary," and that "Medicare patients can permanently receive telehealth services for behavioral/mental health care in their home." That page was last updated February 5, 2026. A line such as "Medicare covers all our telehealth visits" is hard to keep accurate through changes like these. Have the billing lead write coverage statements by payer type, as our guide to insurance and cost content describes, and date the text.
Privacy language needs the same attention. HHS's HIPAA and telehealth page says the COVID-era notifications of enforcement discretion expired "at 11:59 pm on May 11, 2023," with a transition period that ended at "11:59 p.m. on August 9, 2023." If your telehealth page still refers to relaxed rules during the emergency, it is out of date. What the page should now say about the platform and privacy is a question for your privacy officer; the marketing job is to remove stale references and publish what they approve.
A fictional telehealth options table
Here is a hypothetical table for a fictional family medicine practice in Virginia. It shows the facts to gather, not Virginia's rules or any real practice's offer.
| Visit type | Format | New patients? | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Follow-up for an ongoing condition | Video | Established patients only | Medical director |
| Medication check-in | Video or phone | Established patients only | Medical director |
| Non-urgent portal question | Secure message, with the practice's stated response time | Established patients only | Practice manager |
| Annual physical | In person only | Yes | Medical director |
| Where the patient must be | Stated by provider | Applies to all remote visits | Credentialing lead |
Every row carries a review date. When a payer, a license, or a clinical preference changes, the owner updates the row, the telehealth page, and the access page together.
In Hudson South's process, the Authority Asset gathers the practice's confirmed telehealth facts and their owners, Hudson Twenty-One records how the practice communicates across 21 dimensions so the page sounds like its clinicians, Market Intelligence researches what patients in your market ask about virtual visits, and AEO Creation turns those inputs into answer-first content. For the wider set of practice pages, see content for medical, dental and wellness practices.
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- Getting started with telehealth. Telehealth.HHS.gov, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Read 2026-10-15.
- Licensing across state lines. Telehealth.HHS.gov, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Read 2026-10-15.
- Telehealth policy updates. Telehealth.HHS.gov, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Read 2026-10-15.
- HIPAA and Telehealth. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Read 2026-10-15.