Alliance Leadership Says In-Home Care Worth Fighting For

WASHINGTON—Care at home is central to American healthcare despite one of its most challenging years ever, Jennifer Sheets, CEO and president of the National Alliance for Care at Home, said as she opened the organization’s annual conference and expo in Washington. 

Sheets said challenges include payment rates—although there is some optimism on that front—persistent staffing struggles and, more recently, the spectre of fraud tainting legitimate providers and limiting their ability to provide services. 

Nonetheless, care in the home is a critical part of how Americans want to receive healthcare, Sheets said. 

“Finding ways to promote dignity and independence for an aging population should be among the very highest national health policy priority, and that’s exactly what the Alliance is here to do,” she told attendees during her opening speech. 

Sheets highlighted two successful efforts: 

1. The proposed rule for Medicare home health payments, which she said was “significantly better than many feared and certainly better than last year’s proposed rule.” Rather than dramatic cuts, as have been proposed in the past by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), this year’s rule offered the first increase in reimbursement rates in seven years, Sheets said. The final rule could come out as soon as this week, said other experts at the conference. “It is important that we celebrate and recognize that progress, but I want to be clear that it’s not the finish line,” Sheets said. 
2. Work is being done to protect and preserve the hospice benefit “despite the overwhelming specter of fraud,” she said. Efforts include HR 8883, a bill proposing targeted solutions without penalizing mission-driven providers operating in good faith. “Bad actors hurt patients and they hurt all of you, the honest providers,” Sheets said. 

New Strategy, Staff at Alliance

Sheets reported on changes at the Alliance, which was formed late in 2024 as a merger between two home health, hospice and palliative care organizations. She shared a strategiv plan for 2026-2029, which she called “a road map for the next several years,”

The plan includes four primary areas of focus: advocate, connect, strengthen and grow. It also outlines five “Centers of Excellence,” each based on a type of care: home health, hospice, homecare, Medicaid home- and community-based services, and palliative care. She said building out the last three centers are particular priorities. 

Sheets also introduced two new staff members: 

• Jennifer Stewart, vice president of strategic engagement and experience, who joined last week 
• Craig Wright, who will be joining as the organization’s first chief financial officer 

Sheets said the Alliance has recently launched an image campaign designed to boost confidence in and awarenes of care at home. That effort has served about 7 million ad impressions, reaching viewers in high fraud areas and leaders in Washington, she said. 

The organization has also launched a new National Care at Home Foundation, launched a podcast, and created a new initiative focused on caring for veterans. 

All these efforts are important to make sure in-home care providers are included in the conversations that will affect their work going forward, she said. 

“Every policy maker in Washington, every payer, every health system is going to make decisions about where care happens in the future,” Sheets said. “The question is whether care at jome is at the table making the decisions or reading about them afterwards.” 

“To be clear, we intend to be at the table,” she said.