What’s Ahead in Home Care Advocacy — 2026

What’s Ahead in Home Care Advocacy — 2026

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Welcome to CareSmartz360 On Air, a Home Care Podcast. I’m Erin Cahill, Sales Account Executive at CareSmartz360. I’m thrilled to be joined today by Mike Sokoloski, Director of Grassroots Advocacy at BAYADA Home Health Care. With deep experience in building community connections and empowering advocates for home care clients, Mike leads the efforts that give voice to those who need it most. Today, he’ll walk us through what’s on the horizon for homecare advocacy and how

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we can make an impact in 2026. Welcome to the podcast, Mike. >> Thanks. Appreciate the invitation. Happy to share how advocacy works when we collaborate with others in the industry. >> Perfect. So, we will jump right into the first question here. Uh Mike, what advocacy trends will matter most for home care in 2026? >> Yeah. Uh so great starting point because it it’s the need uh has grown uh because of a lot of both federal and state uh changes, major changes uh in the

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landscape. And one of those things is with legislative advocacy that we mostly do. We do some legislative and regulatory on the legislative side. VO voices and personal stories uh really are what is most important right now in terms of moving the needle uh and getting collaboration uh from not just uh teams like us that do this for a living, but getting the stories from directly from the clients and the field staff uh so that legislators could hear uh these personal stories uh because they’re legislators are going to be

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visited 10 times a day by 10 different industries throughout the year when they have open office hours and they’re going to hear the same questions when it comes down to it. Uh 99% of the time it’s about rate increases for whatever industry it is. We’re looking at nurses, aids, therapists, etc. They’re looking at different things. What really uh separates us, and I’m hoping the others aren’t listening, but the uh what separates our industry are those personal stories. uh

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>> right >> when we tell how it is for the caregiver, how it is for the uh client receiving care, then whether it’s, you know, lack of available nurses or therapists or aids, uh and what that does to them, uh how it affects their families, having to call off from work because there isn’t someone to take care of their loved one, their child, etc. Uh so that the utilization of the stories either through video uh in person in district meetings or at capitals uh that would be one. Uh another another trend I

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say it keeps growing over the last few years you know I’m 30 years in either one realm or another of healthcare. When I started, everybody was in their own silo in terms of organizations, associations. Uh you didn’t collaborate a lot. And now it is it’s to the point where it’s one big team. >> I think that that trend is a huge positive force in creating the larger voice uh for especially home care recipients and and the caregivers. Uh now we collaborate and we collaborate on

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the advocacy. uh that’s you know where it ends but that collaboration is really important that we get together and uh have one unified voice. So I those are the two majors that I see. >> Yeah. And how can agencies start meaningful advocacy without big budgets? >> Yes. So and again everybody has to start somewhere. Yeah. Usually they don’t throw big money behind things like this unless they see some outcomes. So in the beginning now versus years ago uh there you know technology has made this a

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A little easier in that uh social media uh is one of those ways where your organization uh could share to their uh any of the social pages uh especially LinkedIn, Facebook and X. You know, those are the very popular ones to share and be able to tag legislators either state or federal uh with your personal stories that we just talked about or concerns for rate increases uh regulatory change that’ll make caregiving easier. But putting that on your organization’s page and then behind the scenes asking people in the

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organization through email dissemination or newsletters to to share those uh like them, share them to their own personal pages. Uh but the important part is tagging the legislators uh their right by their right name. uh including specific asks uh keeping it brief and you know picture or video uh story with client andor field uh engagement or interactions that’s one way uh the second I talked a little bit about the alliance so there are other organizations in homecare and healthcare the alliance is you know one of the

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biggest it’s the actually the newest and but being a part uh if you’re an organization that’s looking to get into advocacy joining organizations like that or state associate associations uh as an agency and then >> you know that is extremely helpful because you’re kind of getting a taste of what opportunities they could provide you. Uh you have a say as a member of these organizations in what is getting done and then you’re able to respond to uh really light lifts like action alert

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emails that they’ll send to you uh either regarding Medicaid, Medicare. etc. that it’s just a click of a button after you validate what the language looks like that you’re comfortable sending it. And another opportunity with those same state or federal associations are attending lobby or advocacy days. Uh they’re referred to both ways, but again the harmony, the uh collaboration by organizations, uh sending staff all to the capitals >> and having meetings together broken up

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in teams. You’re not with your same employees. So, you’re going in with that one unified voice uh to these legislators and they see you all saying the same thing. They’re not tugging in different ways, >> right? Yeah. And what role should clients and caregivers play in advocacy? >> Yeah. Uh one goes back to question one. I won’t stay on it long with stories. So, so they have the capability uh to do that by either meeting with their direct constituent legislators in district

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or at the capital on those lobby days. >> And I say direct constituent legislator, that’s that’s key uh for these consumers of home care or employees is finding the right one. I’m not sure you could go to a lot of places. I’m not just making a plug, but again on our website, like a lot of other websites, uh, besides hearts for own, you could do a find your legislator lookup. So, we have it there where I just plug in my street address and the city tells me my state and federal legislators.

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So, that’s one way to do it if you’re their details. Yeah, you’re going to get their email address >> and again, shameless plug, but I, you know, I’d like to get this story out because it is important. So, we and others also have uh video components. So, just like you and I are talking now, you can click a button there and share your story and it literally would directly go to the legislature. Uh, and they get these consumer stories and field employee stories that they record just

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by clicking a button. They could redo as many times as they want before they send or submit it. >> But that’s a great way. The collaborative way in terms of internal where field staff and clients come together is the home visit. Uh so Aaron, this is like this is it of all the work uh I’ve done in the last 15 years. The home visit is the most impactful way you’re going to get a firsthand account where the legislator, state or federal, come into your home of a client and see the care that’s given, see the

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conditions, see what’s going on dayto-day in terms of care. hear from the other people in the house working and what they have to do and the types of care and if there’s call offs. Uh, a lot of changes by perspective of legislators have happened over the years when they actually go on these home visits. Some of them are trying to cut checks to buy generators. Uh, like you know, real stories. We’ve had legislation passed by lame duck legislators because they were so moved by the visit. They literally got their

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colleagues to initiate uh bills, you know, based on it was uh screening of newborns to see if there’s something >> uh that they could diagnose quicker. So yeah, these home visits, there’s a lot more stories like that, but those are two that always resonate with me that it’s wild to get a lame duck any type of uh legislator to get anything done. They’re going out of the office. They’re it’s usually not the time and and definitely you don’t see legislators just trying to write checks

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to buy equipment for people, right? >> So, you know, those are definitely some of the ways. >> Very impactful. And Mike, which policy priorities should agencies push for next year? >> Well, one, you’ll definitely love this uh based on what your uh organization does. So, technology adoption and AI is definitely one of the majors. Uh you you have to be nimble. You have to pivot a lot now uh in home care in terms of uh how to make the best out of the time

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you have in terms of uh getting the shifts covered. >> Being able to communicate with insurance companies behind the scenes, coordinating the care, calling and getting staff because recruitment is a huge uh issue in the industry. uh so AI and other technologies that could help manage cases uh can help interpret uh again telehealth remote monitoring uh a lot of these things all sync together in terms of just technology adoption and the AI itself working together but I mean I scrolling LinkedIn you see now

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different uh industry leaders promote promoting and and choosing AI and saying it’s safe. I mean, it’s even something for me personally uh very hesitant to be I almost felt like I was cheating. >> I’ll be clear like I was like I if I do this everyone’s going to know and >> and the push back is no that’s fine if everyone knows it’s it’s better. >> It helps guide you. You could edit it but it helps you. Yeah. So those are two uh and then the other I I think a lot of

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times with any industry there’s a lot of regulation uh that is now extremely burdensome paperwork wise without it getting into the weeds that we don’t just advocate in the industry for rate increases. Uh, a lot of times it’s things like that where there are some administrative burdens that don’t need to be done as frequently as they do. It’s just something that was passed in 1920 when home care and home healthcare and they just wrote regs and they just don’t get changed. So, we do a

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a lot of that as an industry. Uh >> and it’s necessary and with all these technologies that are advancing, it’s actually helping Aaron in the uh give and take with the legislators because they see that this is something that will be beneficial to creating more access to care for clients in the home, >> right? And how can agencies use data to influence policy makers? >> Yeah. So we have we’ll go back to the lobby days a great example in terms of the uh data and general meetings but the the lobby

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days themselves and the advocacy days we have in either the US capital in DC or in the states uh when you get together as teams you know there’s a structure to meeting with these legislators the you know the open introduce you know this is Aaron with this agency and I’m with this and you cut through that and there’s always the open where you know we’re here today to a lot of times ask for a rate increase to the nursing uh home health aids etc. As I said in the beginning you’re you’re

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getting 10 other people asking for rate increases for different things that are all probably valuable. Uh so when you say how data well our stories are super important, you know that that’s not changing, but you can’t you can’t just say uh we need this rate increase because we need it to hire more nurses. We know that we’re losing them. Mhm. >> If you could bring a rate study that shows what uh employers of Target, home, Walmart, Amazon are getting paid in the community versus what a caregiver in the

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home uh providing care to someone that if they didn’t have it uh would need institutional care. >> And no one’s poo pooing institutional care, but no one wants it unless they have to have it. So to remain at home, we need more aids. What would you do? Like you ask them, would you do this for this much an hour or provide care to someone that needs to stay in the home, you know, life sustaining sometimes care. So uh bringing the data uh where you see drop offs in uh retaining nurses in the

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field, not just uh at your own organizations. Uh when was the last pay rate? uh bringing that type of data. There are some states it was I think one of them at nine years there hasn’t been a rate increase >> cost of living adjustments alone >> increases >> minimum wage increases that affect everybody else like you >> you shake your head and in a lot of these meetings they’ll also come back at you Aaron with uh >> we get it we understand it and then you’ll tell them that uh this type of

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care costs this home care costs this like yeah that saves money we we we see it like on these fact sheets >> but yet we’re still there every month >> we’re asking the same thing and uh it’s difficult so yeah having those data uh fact points in the leave behinds uh that you will legislator >> and being able to back it up >> uh one thing with data that we teach our advocates uh when we have trainings uh if if you’re asked a question or you’re providing data data. If it’s true, stand

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buy it and give it. If you don’t know if you’re guessing, never never guess. Never guess. Never make it up. Say, “I’ll get back to you.” >> We always tell our advocates that provides you another opportunity to meet with the legislature, >> right? >> Not lose trust immediately. >> So data, data and stories are the top two. >> You’re looking at the stories moving the needle on the heartstring and the data making concrete decisions. uh if it’s between one or another, you had the

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hard facts and you had the stories. >> And last question here for you, Mike. Um what common advocacy misstep should agencies avoid? And I think you just mentioned one when you’re talking about those lobby days, but um what other advocacy missteps do you see that agencies need to >> Yeah. Besides Yeah. besides never ever making up an answer ever to look good in a meeting. Uh the first one I guess uh we’ll stick with the made up answers. So even if you’re inside your

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own organization as a team uh meeting with legislators or joining others uh in meetings, you’ll get uh potential rogue advocates. So Aaron and Mike, they’re going in there sticking to the talking points and the asks. And then you get one other person on the team that’s there for the day, but they get a meeting with their legislator and they take an opportunity to talk about school funding, data centers, roads, etc. they try to get in a plug and uh it’s being able to

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steer that advocate back and nicely say, you know, make a separate meeting with the legislator. That’s a great point that you’re making, but you know, we have an opportunity today to talk about home care. And so being able to politely steer rogue advocates during meetings is definitely a misstep that happens that you could uh correct if >> if you’re aware that this could happen because sometimes you don’t see it coming and and >> there are horror stories that we’ve

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heard and we don’t like to add to it. So we talk about the rogue adverts all the time. Uh, another misstep is if you and I don’t live in the same state, this is really easy. Uh, who to meet with. I talked a little bit about, you know, finding your legislator. If you don’t know who it is, you know, use a resource to find who your legislator is. Your direct constituent legislators are the ones that care and the ones that listen because you’re voting them in or out of office. if uh Aaron is a legislator and I asked

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to meet with Aaron and they typically won’t say no, but it’s more difficult if I’m not a constituent and they’re not going to give enough uh credit to what I’m asking if I’m not one of their constituents. So making sure that when you coordinate meetings as an organization or get together with other groups that you’re meeting with your direct constituent legislator, not just anyone or someone you see on TV that you think that would be great to meet with them because they’re always on

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TV and they seem popular. Uh and the last I guess would be uh cadences. Uh so you you know mentioned about starting a program from scratch and uh in terms of financial commitments or what could you do as a light lift meeting once or twice with that either on the Medicaid side a state representative or state senator twice a year in their district office or once in district and if you attend an advocacy day but getting multiple touch points face to face with a legislator with the same exact asks different stories maybe,

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>> but it it’s the one thing about advocacy, not just in home care, all of it is a long game. >> Uh you’re not going to a legislator’s office to ask for a rate increase for the first time and getting it next week or next month. They need to see the masses. And that’s why we try to elevate our voices over and over again with the same talking points. And that’s why unity is so important. That’s why you see a lot of the organizations come together because they don’t want to hear two large groups

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or factions with two different stories for the same industry. It makes it more difficult to get things done. So on a, you know, micro level, if your agency could have some of their employees meet uh with either state or federal officials, depending on if you’re a Medicaid or Medicare type provider, uh that makes a world of difference in terms of the long game. And it is a long game. uh you you do get rewarded if you’re providing the data that’s accurate and the stories and meeting

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with them over and over again, they see that it’s a real need. >> Well, that’s really helpful, Mike. I really appreciate your um input on this uh issue. I really appreciate you being here today. And to all of our listeners, thank you again for tuning in to CareSmartz On Air and we’ll see you again soon.