About NAHC FAQs

What is the National Association for Home Care and Hospice (NAHC)?
NAHC is the nation's largest trade association representing the interests and concerns of home care agencies, hospices, home care aide organizations, and medical equipment suppliers. Simply put, NAHC is the one organization dedicated to making home care and hospice providers lives easier. From professional development to fighting for better regulation, from knowing all angles of federal and state regulations to providing the latest information affecting home care and hospice, NAHC stands ready to serve your needs, enabling you to better serve your patients.

Who are NAHC's members?
NAHC members are primarily corporations or other organizational entities providing care directly in the home setting, in addition to state home care associations, medical equipment suppliers, and schools. NAHC also offers individual memberships. Increasingly, professionals such as social workers, nurses, and home care aides who are employed by home care agencies or are interested in home care are joining one of the forums established by NAHC to serve the specific needs of these fields.

What is NAHC's mission?
NAHC believes that Americans should receive health care and social services in their own homes, so far as this is possible. Senior citizens and other vulnerable groups should be able to live in independence through the assistance of home care services, making institutionalization a last resort. NAHC seeks to reverse the current bias that places hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of fragile children and chronically ill seniors in nursing homes or retained in hospitals when they could receive equal or better care at home.

NAHC believes that home care keeps families together and is devoted to doing all in its power to preserve the sanctity of the American family, the bedrock of American democracy.

How did NAHC get started?
The National Association for Home Care and Hospice was founded in Washington, DC on March 10, 1982, through a merger of the National Association for Home Health Agencies (NAHHA) and the Council of Home Health Agencies/Community Health Services (CHHA/CHS). The structure that was adopted accommodates both geographic and organizational differences of provider members. Specific representation on the Board of Directors was created for each of the 10 governmental regions of the US and for each different type of home care provider, that is, proprietary, voluntary, hospice, and so forth. In 1986, NAHC merged with the National Homecaring Council, which became part of NAHC's related Foundation for Hospice and Home Care.

What are the purposes for which NAHC was organized?
The following purposes were approved by the Board of Directors and is included in NAHC's articles of incorporation:

1. To serve as the unified voice for the home care and hospice community.
2. To provide direct needed services to the members.
3. To heighten the political visibility of home care and hospice interests.
4. To influence the legislative, judicial, and regulatory processes with respect to issues of importance to hospice and home care.
5. To sponsor research by gathering and disseminating home care and hospice data.
6. To promote home care and hospice services as viable components of the health delivery system.
7. To foster, develop, and promote high standards of patient care in home care and hospice services.
8. To provide expert advice and assistance to members on management, legal, and operational issues.
9. To disseminate information to the media and the general public that promotes knowledge and acceptance of home care and hospice services and support for family/informal caregivers.
10. To expand private health insurance and other third-party sources for financing hospice and home care services and issues.
    To promote collaboration among national, state, and local organizations relating to home care and hospice services and issues.
11. To initiate, sponsor, and promote educational reforms.
12. To represent the interests of caregivers (nurses, home care aides, physicians, and therapists) who work in the home care field and to encourage individuals to choose a career in home care and hospice services.
13. To protect the legal rights of hospice and home care beneficiaries, providers, and their employees.
14. To promote the independence of and contributions made by potential home care clients, thereby shattering the myth that dependence is a necessary state for the aged and disabled in America.

Why was NAHC organized as a trade association?
NAHC was established as a trade association because of a fundamental desire to unify an industry whose past divisiveness and lack of organization rendered it impotent in its efforts to influence the outcome of legislation before Congress or to shape regulations promulgated by the Department of Health and Human Services.

A trade association seeks to unify an interest group, to enlist as many members as possible, and to speak with one voice before Congress. Trade associations sometimes affect changes that even benefit nonmembers. The philosophy of NAHC's founders was for an inclusive membership policy; that it should take in all those who provide home care under one umbrella; and, moreover, that it should try to help as many agencies as possible, including those who cannot afford to pay its dues.

Why was the association called the National Association for Home Care and Hospice instead of the National Association for Home Health and Hospice Agencies?
The primary reason for the selection was to encompass all in-home health, hospice, and social services provided by all home care agencies, and to inform the public that NAHC represents more than Medicare-certified home care and hospice agencies. Even though most of its members are traditional Medicare-certified home care and hospice agencies and much of its energies have been directed toward reforming the Medicare home health care benefit, NAHC invests considerable resources in representing the interests of non-Medicare providers. The name selection reflects the philosophy that home care aide and hospice organizations are part of the greater universe of home care. NAHC was designed to represent the interests of all providers offering in-home, community-based, and supportive services.

NAHC's Form 990
Information about the National Association for Home Care and Hospice (NAHC), including its Form 990, can be found on GuideStar. GuideStar, the leading source of information on US nonprofits, is a searchable database of more than 1.7 million IRS-recognized nonprofit organizations. www.guidestar.org