Caregiver Nation Coalition: Work Requirements Exemption Toolkit for Family Caregivers
The National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC), through its Caregiver Nation Coalition, has released a new advocacy resource, "Work Requirements Exemption Toolkit for Family Caregivers," in response to recent federal Medicaid guidance.
On December 8, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released guidance outlining how states must design and implement Medicaid community engagement requirements, often referred to as work requirements, beginning in 2027. This guidance creates a time-sensitive opportunity for family caregiver advocates to engage as states develop their policies, including how caregiver exemptions will be interpreted, designed and applied.
The Work Requirements Exemption Toolkit for Family Caregivers is designed to help caregivers, service providers and advocates engage effectively with state leaders during this policy development period. The toolkit includes:
- Background and framing on how Medicaid work requirements can harm families who are providing care at home and increase reliance on costly and unwanted institutional care
- New data from Caregiving in the U.S. 2025 highlighting who family caregivers are and the challenges they face
- Messaging resources and data from national caregiving partners to support effective advocacy with state officials
- A customizable template letter that organizations and individual advocates can adapt and send to governors, state Medicaid directors and state aging agencies, urging states to:
- Use the broad definition of family caregiver from the RAISE Family Caregivers Act
- Automatically exempt family caregivers who provide care to individuals enrolled in Medicaid or VA consumer-directed programs
- Design simple, low-burden verification and reporting systems
This timely resource encourages advocates to incorporate local data and real caregiver stories to demonstrate how state decisions on exemptions and implementation could either protect or harm family caregivers.
NAC is holding a related webinar January 27 on "Caregiver Insights Across the States: Translating Data into Local Action."
Explore the toolkit.
Learn more about the National Alliance for Caregiving.
Visit NAC's Caregiver Nation Coalition.
Register for NAC's January 27 webinar.
Learn more about JAHF'S co-support of NAC and its Caregiver Nation Coalition (formerly the Act on RAISE Campaign).
