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Against that backdrop, Home Health Care News has identified a group of providers worth watching in the year ahead. Some are beginning a new chapter under new ownership. Others are backed by fresh capital, building momentum through M&A or making bets on technology and operational transformation.
There are many home care providers making noteworthy moves in 2026, but the companies highlighted below stand out because they are at important inflection points and are taking innovative approaches to some of home care’s most consequential trends.
Home Health Care News is highlighting six of these innovative organizations in this exclusive, members-only HHCN+ story.
Avid Health at Home
Home Health Care News always pays attention when a provider starts to initiate a meaningful acquisition streak. But a sustained run of deals is even more compelling.
Chicago-based Avid Health at Home has recently clinched the title of a sustainably acquisitive company. The personal home care, private duty home health and companion care provider recently announced its eighth acquisition: Tech Medical Home Care Services.
Tech Medical offers home health and personal care services for individuals in eastern Kentucky and southern Ohio. The deal further cements Avid’s status as a multi-disciplinary, growth-oriented home-based care company and extends its presence into two new states.
“I genuinely feel that it was the right deal at the right time. This was less about timing in the market and more about finding the right partner,” Jen Lentz, CEO of Avid Health at Home, told HHCN. “We were ready organizationally. We do deals that make us feel really confident that we can be successful, and this one just kind of checked all of those boxes.”
Interested parties can also expect Avid’s footprint to continue growing, as Lentz told HHCN the company is in numerous conversations about its M&A pipeline.
Avid is worth watching not only for its acquisitive ambitions, but also for what may eventually come next in its ownership story. Dallas-based, health care-focused private equity firm Havencrest Capital Management formed Avid in 2023 with its acquisition of For Papa’s Sake Home Care. While that investment remains relatively early in a traditional private-equity hold period, the company could be positioning itself for a recapitalization or sale conversation in the years ahead.
For now, HHCN will be watching to see whether Avid can sustain its acquisition momentum, successfully integrate its growing collection of providers and continue to build scale under Havencrest’s ownership.
Freedom Senior Services
Louisville, Kentucky-based Freedom Senior Services earned its spot on this list for several reasons. The home care provider, which also operates integrated adult day centers, recently came under new ownership and leadership — and this shakeup could spark an uptick in acquisitions.
Dr. Brian Holzer, a veteran home-based care executive who recently returned to non-medical home care after leading Aware Recovery Care, a home-based substance use disorder treatment company, took on the CEO role this spring. The leadership change followed Gemspring Capital’s acquisition of Freedom.
Holzer aims to usher the company into a new chapter of growth.
“We’re going to be aggressive players in mergers and acquisitions as we look for potential opportunities to grow geographically or different service lines through an acquisition framework, as well,” Holzer told HHCN.
One of the reasons to watch Freedom is its multi-pronged growth strategy. Holzer highlighted several potential avenues for growth, including a deeper push into private pay and veteran services and growing the company’s intellectual and developmental disabilities service line. He also said the company could consider serving additional client demographics beyond older adults, creating another potential growth lever.
With new funding, leadership and an appetite for rapid expansion, HHCN will be watching Freedom’s growth trajectory in the coming year.
Always Best Care
Always Best Care, a franchise home care and companionship provider, also has new investment under its wings and has already begun to make changes fuelled by the cash infusion.
Private equity firm NexPhase became the majority investor of Always Best Care in November, with existing investors Gemini Investors and Plenary Partners reinvesting in the home care provider. With new investors and funds, the Rocklin, California-based company is looking to expand its franchise footprint and has made changes in both its leadership team and its tech stack.
“We’re definitely doing things with our internal technology stack, and I definitely give credit to our new partnership phase that has really looked to help us embrace further advancements in our technology stack as well as in building our corporate executive team,” Jake Brown, president and CEO of Always Best Care, told HHCN. “We brought on a new chief marketing officer. We’re also looking to bring on a significant executive in the area of developing new payer referral sources either nationally and or regionally and locally, and we’ve brought on a director of IT.”
Rocklin, California-based Always Best Care operates in 298 territories across 31 states and two provinces in Canada, offering skilled nursing and assisted living alongside its core personal home care and companionship services.
Beyond growing its franchise network, Brown said the company is working to help new franchise owners accelerate revenue growth from launch. To do that, leadership is helping franchisees build relationships with referral and payer sources, diversify revenue streams and hire sales professionals.
HHCN will be watching to see how Always Best Care’s leadership and technology changes — along with its franchisee-support strategy — facilitate a faster growth curve.
Caring Senior Service
Technology has become a defining trend in home care, offering providers new opportunities to improve efficiency and ease frontline workers’ workloads. One company stands out for its especially bullish approach to technology, earning it a place on this list.
HHCN will be watching Caring Senior Service because of the company’s approach to technology — which CEO Jeff Salter has said does not involve an immediate focus on ROI. Instead, company leadership has developed — and re-worked — proprietary software systems designed to take the company into the future.
“I’m looking at this as much more research and development dollars,” Salter said at HHCN’s Capital+Strategy event this year. “I have faith that it’s going to happen, and we’ll have tons of ROI, but if we don’t do these things now, we’re gonna get left behind.”
Caring Senior Service has also updated its C-suite, hiring a new chief operating officer and chief technology officer within the last year. In October, the new execs told HHCN that the company aims to add eight to 10 new franchisees each year and effectively double its footprint over the next five years.
The company has set significant growth goals. HHCN will be watching to see how Caring Senior Service’s technology bet pays off, how its new leaders shape the organization and whether it can achieve its expansion targets.
Comfort Keepers
As home care continues to leverage technology to address persistent challenges, AI has emerged as a tool with the potential to significantly change how operators do business.. AI has evolved so quickly that some say the tech is now “better than humans.”
Franchise home care provider Comfort Keepers stands out for its comprehensive approach to AI. Chief Operating Officer Ramzi Abdine recently detailed the company’s AI toolkit in a conversation with HHCN — and its scope is broad.
The company has developed an enterprise AI platform that franchisees can use to ask questions, built on OpenAI’s technology. Initially launched to support marketing initiatives, the platform proved popular enough that Comfort Keepers expanded its use to sales
The Irvine, California-based company provides companion care, personal home care, private duty nursing, Alzheimer’s and dementia care and veteran care, among other services. In addition to its enterprise platform, leadership has also developed partnerships with vendors that include an AI scheduling agent named Rosie, onboarding efficiency tools and technology that helps detect unsteady walking movement and falls among clients, even when a caregiver is not present in the home.
Not every new tool has been a roaring success — Abdine told HHCN that one scheduling feature the company was testing was tougher for franchisees to adopt.
With a proclivity for AI technology and a desire to test new tools, even if they don’t hit the mark, HHCN will be watching to see how Comfort Keepers continues to innovate and how its investments pay off in the future.
Home Halo
While several established franchise operations made it onto this list, one company earned its spot with its plans to shift to a franchise model and rapidly accelerate growth.
Home Halo officially announced its entrance into the home care franchise space this year. Founder and CEO Dan Deak told HHCN that he has a long-term goal of adding 20-30 new locations annually.
Greenwood Village, Colorado-based Home Halo is a non-medical home care company that offers respite and dementia care in eight states, with seven corporate-owned locations. The company aims to compete with legacy home care companies, and Deak sees franchising as a pathway to accomplish that goal.
“There are some really big players in the home care space that have been around for 25 or 30 years,” he said. “For us to compete on a national level, it’s important that we have a presence throughout the country. So franchising is a way for us to quickly expand the Home Halo franchise model quickly throughout the U.S.”
Deak said that Home Halo will be attractive to potential franchisees because it has a lot of white space across the country, while legacy competitors “don’t have much left to sell.” The CEO also said he is considering moving into the Medicaid space, opening up a new avenue for diversification and growth.
HHCN will be watching to see how Home Halo’s franchise push unfolds and whether the company can meet its growth goals.