Who to call about hospice and palliative care organizations

When people search for "hospice organization," they often expect to find a single national hospice they can call and be admitted to. That is not quite what exists here, and it is worth being clear about that up front.

The National Alliance for Care at Home is what's known as a trade and advocacy association. It was formed by merging two older organizations: the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) and the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC). It describes itself as the largest organization representing, advocating for, educating, and connecting providers of care in the home.

Its members are hospice agencies, home health agencies, and palliative care providers, not individual patients. Its main activities are:

• Advocacy. Lobbying and policy engagement in Congress and with regulators, on behalf of the home-based care field.
• Education. Conferences, webinars, and training aimed at the professionals who work at these organizations.
• Standards and centers of excellence. Focused initiatives in home health, hospice, palliative care, and Medicaid home and community-based services (HCBS).
• Membership services. Regulatory guidance and professional development for provider organizations.

So the Alliance's day-to-day work is aimed at the industry, not at families directly.

The Alliance does maintain patient-facing tools, even though its core mission is provider-focused. A "Find a Provider" tool lets you search for hospice, home health, or palliative care organizations near you. A companion resource called CaringInfo is built specifically for patients and families trying to understand care options and locate providers.

These tools are the practical entry point if you land on the Alliance's website looking for actual care.

It can help you find real providers near you, through its finder tool, when you don't know where to start.

It can give you a starting education, through CaringInfo, on what hospice and palliative care actually involve, which is useful before a harder conversation with your care team.

It can tell you something about industry standards, since organizations that hold themselves to the field's professional norms are often Alliance members.

It cannot admit you to hospice. Enrollment happens through an individual hospice provider, usually with a physician's order, not through the Alliance itself.

It cannot guarantee quality at any specific provider. Membership in a trade association is not a certification of excellence for any single agency; you still need to evaluate a specific hospice on its own record.

It does not manage your case. Once you choose a provider, your day-to-day care relationship is with that specific hospice or home care agency, not with the Alliance.

It is not a government regulator. It advocates for policy positions and educates providers, but licensing and certification of hospices happens through state and federal agencies, separately from this association.

If your family is starting to think about hospice or palliative care, CaringInfo is a reasonable first stop for plain-language background. From there, use the Find a Provider tool, or ask your oncology team directly which local hospice and palliative care organizations they already work with — that referral relationship often smooths the process considerably.

NHPCO and NAHC represented overlapping parts of the same field for years before combining into the National Alliance for Care at Home. Home health, hospice, and palliative care providers often work with the same patients at different points in an illness, so a single, larger association gives that whole field one voice in policy discussions and one set of educational resources, instead of two separate groups sometimes duplicating the same work.

It's also worth noting that a hospice's affiliation with the Alliance says nothing about whether that specific hospice is a good fit for your family. Two hospices can both be reputable members and still differ widely in staffing, home-visit frequency, and how they handle nights and weekends, so asking direct questions of any provider you're considering still matters.

Many families wait longer than they need to before bringing up hospice or palliative care, sometimes out of fear that it signals giving up. Palliative care in particular can start alongside active treatment, not only at the very end. Asking your care team early about what these terms mean for your specific situation costs nothing and can open options sooner rather than later.