The National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC) and the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) are moving forward on the integration of their combined new organization.

Temporarily dubbed the NAHC-NHPCO Alliance as of July 1, among the goals of merging two of the nation’s largest home health and hospice advocacy groups is to garner stronger legislative support to advance meaningful change, according to Kenneth Albert, president and CEO of Andwell Health Partners. Albert also serves on the board of directors of the alliance.

Forming a new organization has come with thoughtful consideration around home health and hospice providers’ greatest areas of current and future need, Albert said recently at NAHC’s Financial Management Conference in Las Vegas.

“We want a unified voice on The Hill, and we want a greater value proposition for member services – that has been our driving force in all of our conversations,” Albert said at the conference. “We have been very thoughtful about how we brought these two organizations together. This [Alliance] is a tremendous resource to our industry [as] we build a tent large enough for all stakeholders in the health care at home sector.”

Last month NAHC and NHPCO inked a deal completing their affiliation after announcing in March 2023 that they were considering some type of collaboration. Both organizations bring a rich history and awareness of the challenges and opportunities in home health and hospice care delivery, said Bill Dombi, interim Co-CEO of the NAHC-NHPCO Alliance.

The alliance is anticipated to take shape under a new name by January 2025, he indicated.

“NAHC was born in 1982 as a merger of five national associations, so it’s in our blood to do this,” said Dombi at the conference. “You’ll see the new organization in its fullest probably around January of next year as we put all these pieces together in an effective way. We have to get to that granular level when putting these two organizations together, because what’s really at stake is all of [the providers’] representation.”

The NAHC-NHPCO Alliance is currently establishing its executive lineup, anticipating to make a CEO announcement by roughly mid-August, according to Albert.

A new website for the combined organizations is also underway, which will be available to all current and new members. The website will feature resources for providers such as best practices for quality care delivery, among other tools for providers, Dombi stated.

The website’s launch is projected for the spring of 2025, according to the alliance’s Co-CEO Ben Marcantonio. It will serve as a hub to connect providers with a wide spectrum of important information.

Additional development steps for the merger have included designing a unified brand and logo, integrating operations and streamlining organizational processes, he added.

“We have now really amplified those efforts by really intentionally integrating the operational dimensions, the systems, the processes and our collaboration across all departments of the Alliance,” Marcantonio said during a recent virtual town hall meeting shared with Hospice News. “That integration work was a strong foundation laid by all the collaboration we had done in areas, particularly of policy and advocacy. That collaboration has really infiltrated and become a part of our work.”

Historically, the organizations have collaborated on a “largely ad hoc basis” on policy and advocacy efforts in the home health and hospice space, executives previously told Hospice News at the time of the merger announcement.

Recent advocacy efforts have included a shared focus of improving program integrity within the Medicare Hospice Benefit as concerns of fraudulent activity heat up in the industry.

Most recently, the NAHC-NHPCO Alliance weighed in on the Hospice Care Accountability, Reform and Enforcement (CARE) Act, drafted by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon). Announced in June at the Hospice News Elevate conference in Washington D.C. The bill, if enacted, would represent the most significant reforms to date for hospice payment and oversight.

The drafted legislation addresses program integrity and quality challenges, proposes an overhaul of the Medicare Hospice Benefit and reimbursement system. The legislation is currently in a discussion draft phase, which has been circulated among the nation’s major industry trade associations and their members for feedback.

The alliance has opposed some of legislation’s proposed changes, urging lawmakers to exercise caution when implementing such a significant overhaul of the way hospices have operated since the inception of the Medicare benefit.

The organization will continue advocacy efforts with legislators aimed at addressing the opportunities and challenges in home health and hospice regulation, reimbursement and operations, according to Dombi. Part of its focus will include the Hospice CARE Act, which marks a significant milestone signaling important evolutions in care delivery on the horizon, he added.

“The mere fact that they shared a discussion draft before introducing the legislation is a very important signal on how they want to see Congress work with the hospice community on a going-forward basis,” Dombi said during the town hall meeting. “This proposed legislation is … a mixture of opportunities and threats, though, and we didn’t hold back in our comments to him indicating where we have concerns, where we have questions and where we would have support. This is not going to be something that just gets finished in a short term. This is something that’s going to have a need for a gradual, cautious path.”