The Drug Enforcement Administration filed a rule on Tuesday that extends pandemic-era telehealth procedures for prescribing controlled substances through November.

The rule, which allowed doctors to prescribe controlled substances without an in-person appointment, was set to expire Thursday when the public health emergency for the COVID-19 pandemic ends.

WHAT IS GOING AWAY WITH THE END OF THE COVID-19 EMERGENCY

The rule will allow for this flexibility to continue through Nov. 11, 2023, a six-month extension from the original expiration date for the policy. The new rule also allows for those who have established a "practitioner-patient telemedicine relationship" an additional one-year grace period.

"If a patient and a practitioner have established a telemedicine relationship on or before November 11, 2023, the same telemedicine flexibilities that have governed the relationship to that point are permitted until November 11, 2024," the DEA rule said.

Healthcare companies have pushed for the additional flexibility on medical prescriptions and were vocally opposed to previous pushes by the Biden administration to roll back the policy with the expiration of the public health emergency on Thursday.

When the rule filed on Tuesday was first proposed, healthcare companies and advocates celebrated the reversal by the DEA, but they were also were weary of possibly rolling back the policy in the future. Pressure from these advocates will likely mount as the now-novel deadline approaches.

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The World Health Organization declared last week that COVID-19 was no longer a global emergency, but it said the pandemic was not over.

The United States declared a public health emergency for the coronavirus on Jan. 31, 2020. The federal government emergency related to the pandemic ended last month, and the public health emergency ends Thursday.