Many providers of aging services are interested in new ways to deliver high-quality support in the home, especially for middle-market consumers. This session will explore how one multisite sponsor of affordable housing and life plan communities expanded its at-home services through a strategic mix of acquisitions, program innovation, and affiliations with home and community-based service providers. Presenters will also highlight two new programs they designed to serve life plan community residents and the broader community: a concierge care navigation and coaching service, and an at-home support program for older adults with incomes just below traditional private-pay thresholds. Gain concrete ideas for building or expanding scalable in-home services to serve current residents and the price-sensitive middle market.

Are you seeking up-to-date information on how federal funding and policy decisions are likely to affect your service lines? Or are you simply curious about the broader policy landscape shaping the aging services field? Either way, you’ll leave satisfied after attending this speed round of Washington updates. The LeadingAge Policy Team will be on hand to fill you in on the latest developments affecting Medicare and Medicaid, workforce policy, affordable housing, and the federal legal landscape. You’ll also receive advocacy tips to ensure your voice is heard in Washington, DC.

What strategies, structures, and processes distinguish high-performing home health and hospice organizations across the United States? This session will address that question by reviewing findings from the 2026 National Healthcare at Home Best Practices Study. Presenters will translate the study’s national findings into practical, actionable insights and share best practices for care transitions, referral management, visit utilization, symptom management, and end-of-life care planning. You’ll learn how evidence-based practices influence quality outcomes, patient experience, staff retention, and financial performance, and how external factors—such as workforce shortages, payment reform, and regulations—are shaping the adoption of best practices nationwide.

A growing number of aging services organizations are building systems to consistently improve outcomes and experiences for the older adults they serve and their families. This session will showcase the ELITE Quality Program, a state-based initiative that helps organizations strengthen leadership alignment, embed continuous improvement practices, and build a strong culture of quality. Presenters will share how ELITE provides the foundational framework organizations need to proactively identify risks, improve quality and safety, and strengthen stakeholder confidence. You’ll gain practical insights from leaders who are implementing the program and learn strategies you can use to build sustainable systems that support exceptional care.

An aging service provider must ensure it has both the funding and the personnel to fulfill its important mission to serve older adults. Unfortunately, recent policy and legal developments threaten the capacity of provider organizations to employ the workforce needed to carry out their missions, secure federal funds to support their work, and preserve their tax-exempt status. This session will review the new requirements providers must meet and the uncertainties that challenge their operations. Presenters will address how these requirements and uncertainties may impact your organization and what steps you can take to mitigate potential risks.

The quality of hospice care depends heavily on caregivers’ relational skills. Yet hospice caregivers often face emotional fatigue, communication challenges, and varying levels of preparedness. This session will explore how hospice staff training can leverage emerging technologies, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR), to enhance caregiver empathy, strengthen communication and connection with patients and families, and improve the patient experience. Presenters will share a case study of one hospice agency’s journey from technology exploration to implementation. You’ll learn how to create a technology implementation roadmap, explore evidence-based strategies for using AI and VR, and consider ethical concerns and safeguards for deploying technology in sensitive care settings.

Do Medicaid payment levels affect quality and influence racial and ethnic disparities in individual nursing homes? This session will present findings from recent research on this previously unexplored question. Presenters will describe their analysis of a new national database containing facility- and resident-level data for nearly 9,500 nursing homes across 44 states. They’ll share findings on racial and ethnic disparities in nursing home quality and outcomes and examine whether these disparities are associated with Medicaid payment levels. Discover how Medicaid reimbursement shapes the association between a nursing home’s racial and ethnic composition, 5-star quality ratings, staffing levels, and resident-level quality outcomes.

Pain is often underrecognized and undertreated in older adults with dementia, many of whom cannot reliably self-report their discomfort. This communication barrier leads caregivers to rely on subjective observations, resulting in inconsistent assessments and missed opportunities for intervention. This session will explore how AI-powered pain assessment tools combine automated facial recognition with structured digital checklists to accurately and consistently identify pain-related behaviors in nonverbal individuals. Presenters will demonstrate how to use these tools to improve clinical decision-making and reduce falls, frailty, and inappropriate drug use. Join this session to discover how technology and human care can work together to ensure a pain-free future for older adults.

Providers of aging services face increasing pressure to help residents and clients maintain their highest level of wellness in the most appropriate, lowest-cost setting. Unfortunately, subtle health and functional changes often go unnoticed until decline triggers care transitions. This session will show you how to delay residents’ decline by shifting from reactive care management to proactive risk awareness. Presenters will explain how everyday observations, care documentation, and caregiver insights can help care teams identify emerging health issues and intervene earlier to prevent unnecessary transitions. They’ll also offer strategies for managing unavoidable care transitions more effectively. You’ll understand why earlier risk awareness is becoming a foundational capability for sustainable, person-centered care.

Nursing homes and post-acute care providers face heightened scrutiny when Medicare and other payers issue Additional Documentation Requests (ADR) or conduct targeted medical reviews and post-payment audits. Delays in responding to these requests can lead to improper payment findings against the provider. This session will help leaders shift from reactive, one-claim-at-a-time ADR responses to a structured, collaborative approach. Presenters will outline common review triggers, explain how documentation gaps and fragmented communication pose financial and compliance risks, and review each step of an ADR, from request through appeal. Learn how to operationalize ADR and denial management to support quality and financial stability.

Medicaid cuts, the aging of the baby boomer generation, and the escalating caregiving crisis are compelling states and the federal government to confront a long-ignored issue: how Americans will pay for long-term care. It remains uncertain whether a lasting solution will come from the states, Congress, or both. But presenters in this session will argue that the opportunity for meaningful discussions about long-term care financing is finally here. Join them to explore why more people are discussing financing reform, what proposals are under consideration, and the distinct coverage, cost, and access trade-offs each entails. You’ll learn how to lend your voice to long-term care financing conversations at the state and federal levels.

Educators, providers, policymakers, and workforce leaders nationwide are rethinking how aging services providers recruit, train, support, and retain frontline caregivers. This session will highlight this collaborative effort. Presenters will describe a recent national meeting that examined the potential for multi-state collaboration to standardize certified nursing assistant (CNA) career pathways through state-based Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Programs. They’ll share lessons learned from convening stakeholders across education, workforce development, aging services, finance, policy, and care delivery systems to discuss workforce solutions. You’ll discover how stakeholder collaboration can drive system-wide changes in policy, practice, and workforce development.

Hospice programs nationwide have been singled out this year as examples of fraud in the Medicare program. This session will review federal efforts to strengthen regulatory safeguards in the hospice field and share LeadingAge’s position on the need to address fraud while reducing the burden on legitimate providers who deliver essential services. Presenters will examine how fraud concerns have impacted the ability of high-quality hospice providers to expand and serve the most vulnerable older adults. They’ll detail the challenges facing nonprofit hospice agencies, highlight bright spots in the fight against fraud, and describe promising efforts to preserve a meaningful hospice benefit.

External audits and reviews affect every facet of an aging services organization, whether conducted by federal agencies such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, state Medicaid departments, or managed care organizations. Understanding how these reviews will affect your organization can help you prepare for, respond to, and address enforcement outcomes. This session will help you leverage your organization’s resources and personnel—including your leadership, finance, clinical, compliance, and legal teams—to navigate external audits and reviews. Presenters will show you how to form an audit response team, assess the business, financial, clinical, and compliance risks associated with an external review, and develop strategies to manage those risks.

Identifying your organization’s fraud and abuse risks and building effective programs to mitigate them can be challenging. Fortunately, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services can help. This session will review a set of voluntary, nonbinding resources the OIG compiled to help providers strengthen their compliance programs, understand their fraud and abuse risks, and prepare for new compliance expectations. Presenters will review OIG’s general compliance guidance, examine its sector-specific guidance for skilled nursing and managed care, and discuss hospice guidance currently being updated. You’ll gain practical insights to help your organization enhance the quality of care, strengthen internal controls, and foster a culture of organizational integrity.

Most home and community-based service (HCBS) agencies cite regulation, staffing, and the growth of managed care as their primary obstacles to growth. While these issues are real, this session will show that most obstacles to HCBS growth, quality, and financial success are internal rather than external. Representatives of a life plan community’s HCBS subsidiary will share highlights from their decade of experience helping senior living communities develop and operate home care, home health, and hospice services. You’ll gain insights into the pitfalls senior living organizations encounter when starting and operating HCBS agencies and take home practical, proactive, and remedial strategies to optimize your operations.

Three new value-based payment models from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) are reshaping how aging services providers deliver and finance care for older adults. This session will introduce you to ELEVATE, ACCESS, and LEAD and explain how providers can use these models to advance chronic care management, dementia care, prevention strategies, and technology-enabled solutions that improve outcomes for residents and clients. Presenters will help you prepare your organization to participate in these emerging models and explain what they could mean for the future of aging services.

Direct care professionals face persistent challenges, including high turnover, low wages, and limited opportunities for career advancement. This session will showcase a promising solution: the Universal Direct Care Workforce Initiative. This career advancement model features immersive training for new hires, specialty training in dementia and behavioral health, and a “Care Integration Senior Aide” who documents and reports clients’ clinical conditions to the care team. A representative from PHI, a national workforce organization, will share data from the initiative’s first year, and a home care partner will describe evidence-based practices implemented through the program. You’ll learn how this model improves the quality of care and boosts workforce satisfaction and retention.