Part 2 of the Home Care Future Series

This is Part 2 of a multi-post series exploring the future of caregiving and why the traditional home care model is no longer sustainable

This Is Not Speculation Anymore

It is official.

The United States government just released a series of findings and policy moves that confirm what operators, caregivers, and families have been saying for years.

The old home care model is unsustainable.

Not evolving.
Not adapting.
Dying.

Recent releases from the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Administration for Community Living (ACL) highlight an uncomfortable truth.

America depends on care, but the system that supports it has fallen behind.

We are aging faster than the system can support.
And now the federal government is acknowledging it.

Even the Government Admits We Are Behind

According to the latest ACL data:

power-of-caregivers-fact-sheet-…

  • More than 70 million paid and unpaid caregivers support older adults and people with disabilities
  • The home care workforce experiences nearly 75 percent turnover
  • Provider organizations are turning away referrals because they cannot staff cases
  • Family caregivers lose an estimated 522 billion in wages each year
  • The United States will need more than 800,000 additional direct care workers by 2032
  • Family caregivers provide an average of 27 hours per week of support with little to no training

These are not industry complaints.
These are federal warning signs.

The language in the reports is calm and bureaucratic, but the message is unmistakable.

The home care system is not slightly behind. It is fundamentally broken.

It is overdue for replacement, not reform.

This Was Never Built to Scale

Traditional home care was never designed to handle the scale, complexity, or population patterns we face today.

It was built for a world where:

  • fax machines were considered advanced
  • paper charts were the standard
  • caregivers were easier to find
  • families lived close
  • demand was lower
  • reimbursement was simpler

That world is gone.

Today, we live in a reality defined by:

  • families spread across different states
  • rising acuity levels
  • caregiver burnout
  • limited funding
  • higher expectations
  • technology that moves faster than policy

Yet most agencies are still trying to solve today’s crisis with yesterday’s systems.

What the Government Is Not Saying but You Should Know

Behind the careful wording, there is a deeper truth.

  • The reimbursement model cannot support meaningful innovation
  • Agencies are financially penalized when they become more efficient
  • Care coordinators are drowning in documentation
  • Workforce solutions are reactive instead of predictive
  • Families are absorbing more responsibility than ever with no training
  • Direct care workers are choosing gig jobs over caregiving
  • Technology adoption is decades behind other industries

This is not simply inefficiency.
It is a structural stall.

The old model is fading quietly.
And now the government has confirmed what many have already seen.

Final Thought

You cannot modernize a system built on scarcity and silence.
You have to rebuild it.

Part 3 of this series will break down why the traditional home care model cannot survive the next decade and what is already rising to replace it.

Part 3 drops next week. Subscribe or check back for the next entry in the Home Care Future Series.

About the Author


Brian Turner is a multi-state home care operator, writer, and the author of Built From Scratch: How to Launch and Grow a Successful Non-Medical Home Care Agency. He writes about the future of caregiving, workforce evolution, and AI-powered care systems.