TL;DR: The home care and aging industry has a packed conference calendar in 2026 from ASA's On Aging in April through the National Alliance for Care at Home's Annual Meeting in October. Whether you're looking to stay current on Medicaid policy, benchmark your technology stack, or build relationships with peers facing the same operational pressures you are, the right conference pays for itself. This guide covers the five major events worth planning around in 2026, what each one is actually for, and how to decide which ones make sense for your organization. If you're evaluating home care software while you're at it, Ankota will be in the room at several of these events and is worth a conversation.

Why the Conference Calendar Matters in 2026

The landscape for home care and aging services organizations shifted meaningfully over the past two years. NAHC and NHPCO merged into the National Alliance for Care at Home, which changed the flagship fall conference. EVV requirements are still expanding in scope and enforcement. The caregiver workforce conversation is moving from crisis awareness to operational strategy. And the AI conversation, which was mostly speculative two years ago, is now showing up in real purchasing decisions.

Conferences are where those shifts surface earliest. The sessions that matter most aren't the keynotes — they're the corridor conversations and the peer-run sessions where people talk about what's actually working in their organizations. If you haven't updated which events you're attending since 2024, it's worth revisiting the calendar.

What follows is a rundown of the five events that home care and aging services professionals should have on their radar for 2026. 

1. ASA On Aging 2026

Dates: April 20-23, 2026 Location: Hyatt Regency Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia Website: asaging.org/on-aging

On Aging is the largest multidisciplinary aging conference in the country, drawing researchers, clinicians, social workers, policymakers, and aging services professionals under one roof. That breadth is both its strength and its limitation. If you're looking for home care operations content specifically, you'll need to be selective about which sessions you attend. But if you want exposure to the policy and research conversations that will shape funding and regulation in the next three to five years, there's no better room to be in.

The April timing makes it a strong early-year investment — you come back with strategic context before the rest of the year's operational decisions are locked in.

Best for: Leaders at organizations that want to stay ahead of policy and demographic trends. Less ideal for operators focused primarily on near-term technology or compliance questions.

2. Home Care Leadership Summit 2026

Dates: May 19-21, 2026 Location: Orlando, Florida Website: store.decisionhealth.com/home-care-leadership-summit

The Home Care Leadership Summit (formerly the Home Health Administrator's Summit and the Private Duty National Conference) draws agency leaders across both Medicare-certified and private duty home care. The programming tends to be operationally focused — reimbursement strategy, compliance, workforce management, and technology — which makes it one of the more directly applicable events on this list for agency administrators.

The May timing gives organizations a mid-year checkpoint: you've seen how Q1 played out, you have enough runway to adjust before year-end, and the speakers are working from the same reality you are rather than last year's data.

Best for: Home care agency administrators and operations leaders who want peer-level, operationally grounded content rather than high-level policy framing.

3. HHCN FUTURE Conference 2026

Dates: August 26-28, 2026 Location: Austin, Texas Website: homehealthcarenews.com/hhcn-live-event/future

FUTURE is the Home Health Care News flagship event and it runs differently from the associations' conferences. It's smaller, more curated, and built explicitly for executive leadership — the programming leans forward-looking on industry structure, M&A activity, technology adoption, and the evolving payer landscape. You won't find a lot of basic compliance or documentation sessions here. What you will find is a high density of peers who are making the same strategic calls you are, often at similar scale.

The August timing is deliberate — it sits between the spring policy season and the fall compliance and operations conference window, which makes it a useful place to stress-test your strategic assumptions before year-end planning.

Best for: Agency CEOs, COOs, and senior leadership at growth-oriented organizations. Also valuable for technology vendors and investors tracking industry direction.

4. HCAOA National Home Care Conference 2026

Dates: September 28-29, 2026 Location: Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld, Orlando, Florida Website: hcaoa.org/national-home-care-conference.html

The HCAOA National Home Care Conference is the premier event specifically for personal care and non-medical home care organizations. Where other conferences on this list cover the broader aging services or home health ecosystem, HCAOA is tightly focused on the issues that personal care agencies navigate: workforce, EVV compliance, private pay and Medicaid waiver funding, and the regulatory environment at the state and federal level.

That specificity is its value. If you run a personal care agency and you attend one conference this year, this is the one where the content will most directly map to your day-to-day operational decisions. The vendor floor also tends to feature technology and services providers that are built specifically for your market.

Best for: Owners and senior leaders at personal care and non-medical home care agencies. EVV, workforce, and state Medicaid waiver topics are reliably well-covered.

5. National Alliance for Care at Home Annual Meeting and Expo 2026

Dates: October 27-30, 2026 (Pre-conference: October 27-28) Location: Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington, DC Website: allianceforcareathome.org/event/2026-annual-meeting-expo

This is the successor to the NAHC Home Care and Hospice Conference and Expo — the result of the 2024 merger between NAHC and NHPCO to form the National Alliance for Care at Home. The 2026 event in Washington, DC will be the second full year under the merged organization, and the programming reflects the combined scope: home care, hospice, palliative care, and the policy environment that governs all of it.

The Washington location is significant. Federal policy proximity matters when the agenda includes advocacy-adjacent sessions, and it creates opportunities for meetings and conversations that don't happen at conferences in resort markets. The expo floor is expected to host over 150 vendors, making it one of the most comprehensive technology and services showcases of the year for the home care and hospice sector.

Best for: Home health and hospice leaders, compliance and policy-focused teams, and anyone looking for breadth — this is the largest event on the list and covers the widest range of roles and organizational types.

How to Decide Which Conferences Are Worth Your Time

Not every organization needs to attend all five. A few questions that help narrow it down:

What's your primary operational focus right now? If it's technology adoption and EVV compliance, HCAOA and the Alliance Annual Meeting both cover that heavily. If it's long-range strategy and payer diversification, FUTURE and the Home Care Leadership Summit are better investments.

What's your organizational type? Personal care agencies will find HCAOA most aligned. Medicare-certified home health and hospice organizations will find more relevant content at the Alliance event. If you operate across multiple service lines, On Aging and the Alliance Annual Meeting both accommodate that breadth.

What do you want to accomplish beyond the sessions? If your primary goal is vendor evaluation, events with large expo floors (Alliance Annual Meeting, HCAOA) give you the most density. If your primary goal is peer relationships at the executive level, FUTURE is smaller and more curated for that purpose.

Practical Takeaways

The calendar runs roughly April through October, which means you have a sequenced planning opportunity rather than a single decision. On Aging in April gives you policy and research context early. The Home Care Leadership Summit in May gives you operational grounding mid-year. FUTURE in August lets you stress-test your strategic direction before fall planning. HCAOA in September and the Alliance Annual Meeting in October give you compliance, policy, and technology content before year-end.

If budget allows for two events, HCAOA and the Alliance Annual Meeting together give the broadest coverage of the operational and regulatory issues facing most home care organizations in 2026. If budget allows for one, the choice comes down to organizational type: HCAOA for personal care agencies, the Alliance Annual Meeting for home health and hospice.

Where Ankota Fits

We build software for the organizations attending these conferences — home care agencies, hospice providers, adult day programs, IDD service organizations, and self-direction FMS programs. The questions that come up on conference floors are the same questions we've built our platform to answer: how do you connect EVV verification to billing without a manual reconciliation step, how do you manage scheduling and documentation when your workforce is stretched, how do you keep up with state Medicaid rule changes without rebuilding your workflows from scratch.

If you're attending any of these events in 2026 and want to compare notes on what you're hearing, or if you'd like to see how Ankota's home care software handles the operational problems your organization is dealing with, we're worth a conversation before or after the conference floor.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happened to the NAHC Home Care and Hospice Conference? NAHC (National Association for Home Care and Hospice) merged with NHPCO (National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization) in 2024 to form the National Alliance for Care at Home. The annual conference continues under the new organization as the National Alliance for Care at Home Annual Meeting and Expo. The 2026 event is scheduled for October 27-30 in Washington, DC.

Which home care conference is best for personal care agencies? The HCAOA National Home Care Conference (September 28-29, 2026 in Orlando) is built specifically for personal care and non-medical home care organizations. It covers the workforce, regulatory, and funding issues most relevant to that market more directly than any other event on this list.

Are there home care conferences focused on technology in 2026? Most of the major conferences have a technology track or significant vendor expo presence. The HHCN FUTURE Conference is the most technology-forward in terms of content framing, with programming focused on the strategic and operational implications of technology adoption rather than product demonstrations. The Alliance Annual Meeting and HCAOA expo floors are both strong for vendor evaluation.

When should I register for 2026 home care conferences? Early bird rates are typically available three to six months before each event. For events in the fall (HCAOA in September, Alliance Annual Meeting in October), registration is usually open by spring. For On Aging in April, registration opened in late 2025. Check each organization's website directly for current pricing and registration deadlines.

Is there a conference that covers both home care and adult day services? ASA's On Aging is the most likely to include content spanning home care, aging services, and community-based care including adult day programs. The LeadingAge Annual Meeting (October 25-28, Philadelphia) also covers aging services broadly including home care, senior living, and community-based programs, and is worth considering if your organization operates across multiple service lines.