Top home health and hospice agencies in the United States, ranked by ChatGPT answers

There isn’t a single nationally “best” home health or hospice agency. Quality varies substantially by local branch, and Medicare’s current data are much more useful for comparing the specific agencies serving a patient than for ranking national brands.

For a U.S.-wide starting point, I’d look at these established organizations where they operate in the patient’s area, then verify the individual location in Medicare Care Compare:

Major national/regional organizations to investigate

• Amedisys — One of the major U.S. home-health and hospice organizations, with extensive geographic coverage.
• CenterWell Home Health — Large home-health network associated with Humana/CenterWell.
• Enhabit Home Health & Hospice — Large national home-health and hospice operator.
• AccentCare — Large provider of home health, hospice, personal care and related services.
• LHC Group — Major home-health/hospice organization now part of UnitedHealth Group's Optum.
• Compassus — Large hospice and home-health organization with substantial regional coverage.
• VITAS Healthcare — Major national hospice provider.
• Traditions Health — National/regional home-health and hospice organization.
• Gentiva — Large provider operating hospice, home health and palliative-care services.

Important: I wouldn't interpret that list as a ranking. A highly regarded national organization can have one excellent branch and another mediocre one. Medicare's data are reported at the agency level, which is why the local branch matters.

What I'd use to choose among them

For home health, Medicare publishes quality measures including timely initiation of care, improvement in mobility and activities of daily living, hospitalization/readmission-related measures, and patient experience. CMS also provides a Quality of Patient Care star rating and a separate patient-survey rating.

For hospice, Medicare's Care Compare data include quality of patient care and family caregiver experience, along with information about the agency's services, ownership, certification, patient population and level of care. The hospice data were refreshed on August 26, 2026.

I'd particularly compare:

1. Medicare quality ratings
2. Patient/family experience
3. Recent regulatory deficiencies or complaints
4. How long the local agency has been Medicare-certified
5. Whether it provides the particular services needed — skilled nursing, PT/OT, wound care, dementia care, palliative care, continuous hospice care, inpatient hospice, etc.
6. Response time and staffing — ask how quickly a nurse can visit and whether there is 24/7 clinical availability for hospice.
7. Insurance/network status and out-of-pocket costs
8. Physician and hospital referrals — useful as one data point, but not a substitute for checking the agency's actual quality data.

CMS maintains a downloadable national database of more than 12,000 Medicare-registered home-health agencies, including quality ratings and individual performance measures. CMS also provides oversight information through its Quality, Certification and Oversight Reports system.

If you tell me the city/state (or ZIP code) and whether you're looking for home health, hospice, or both, I can compare the actual agencies available there using the latest Medicare quality data and give you a side-by-side comparison rather than relying on national brand names.

Places ChatGPT showed

• BAYADA Assistive Care - State Programs · 5.0★ · Home health care service
• South Jersey Healthcare Community · Home health care service
• NJ Health Hospice and Palliative Care · 5.0★ · Hospice
• Red Oak Hospice and Palliative Care · 4.7★ · Hospice

If you mean agencies that can provide skilled nursing, therapy, medication management, wound care, and other support after a hospital discharge, there isn't one national agency that is objectively “best.” Quality varies substantially by local branch, and Medicare's Care Compare data are the most useful starting point.

National agencies worth comparing

Some large organizations with substantial home-based care operations include:

• Amedisys
• CenterWell Home Health
• BAYADA Home Health Care
• Enhabit Home Health & Hospice
• Gentiva
• AccentCare
• LHC Group

I wouldn't choose among these based simply on the national brand. Medicare's ratings are agency-specific, and the local branch's staffing, response time, clinical expertise, and communication can matter more.

What I would look at after a hospitalization

For home health, I would compare:

1. Medicare quality rating — particularly measures involving improvement in mobility/self-care, timely start of care, medication management, and potentially preventable hospitalizations.
2. Patient survey results (HHCAHPS) — especially communication, professionalism, discussion of medications/safety, and willingness to recommend the agency.
3. How quickly they can start — ideally immediately after discharge when clinically appropriate.
4. Whether they provide the disciplines needed — RN, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, social work and home-health aide.
5. Experience with the particular problem that caused the hospitalization — e.g., heart failure, COPD, stroke, joint replacement, wound care, diabetes, or falls.
6. 24/7 clinical availability and what happens if the patient's condition deteriorates overnight.
7. Communication with the hospital and primary-care physician, including medication reconciliation.

Medicare notes that its home-health star rating is based on seven quality measures, while patient survey ratings provide a separate perspective on patients' experiences.

If you're asking because the patient is in South Jersey

Since you're looking for care after a hospital stay, I can make this much more useful than a nationwide list. I can compare the actual Medicare-certified agencies serving the patient's ZIP code, including their current Medicare quality ratings, patient-experience measures, services, ownership, and whether they also offer hospice.

For example, around the Vineland area, the search also turns up local providers such as BAYADA Assistive Care - State Programs, South Jersey Healthcare Community, and hospice-focused providers such as NJ Health Hospice and Palliative Care and Red Oak Hospice and Palliative Care. These shouldn't be treated as equivalent services, though: non-medical home care, Medicare home health, palliative care, and hospice are different benefits/services.

If you give me the patient's ZIP code and what they were hospitalized for (for example, pneumonia, stroke, heart failure, surgery, or a fall), I can compare the relevant agencies and explain the differences without simply relying on online star ratings.

Yes. There are thousands of Medicare-registered home health agencies in the U.S. that provide skilled nursing and physical therapy in the patient's home. CMS's current provider dataset specifically identifies whether an agency offers nursing care and physical therapy, along with location, phone number, certification, and quality measures.

Some of the larger national/regional organizations that offer both include:

• Amedisys — Provides skilled nursing and physical therapy at home, along with OT, speech therapy, and other services.
• CenterWell Health Care Services — Its home-health program includes skilled nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy; availability varies by location.
• BAYADA Home Health Care — Has Medicare-certified home-health locations in numerous states, although the exact disciplines offered can vary by branch.
• Enhabit Home Health & Hospice — Operates Medicare-certified home-health agencies in multiple states.
• Adoration Home Health and Hospice — Provides home-health services through locations in multiple states.
• Visiting Nurse Association (VNA) organizations — Numerous independent VNAs provide skilled nursing and PT, but services and insurance participation vary by local agency.

Importantly, the specific branch matters. An organization may offer PT nationally but a particular office may not currently have PT staffing or may not serve a particular ZIP code. CMS's database is useful because it records nursing and PT availability at the individual agency level.

Medicare coverage

If you're asking because you need these services for a particular patient, Medicare generally covers medically necessary part-time/intermittent skilled nursing and physical therapy at home when the eligibility requirements are met, including being homebound and having services ordered as part of a plan of care.

If you give me the ZIP code or city/state where the patient lives, I can identify the local agencies that provide both skilled nursing and PT, and compare their Medicare certification, ratings, services, and contact information.

Places ChatGPT showed

• SunCare Hospice & Palliative Care · 4.4★ · Hospice

If by “respond fastest after a hospital discharge” you mean how quickly an agency can accept a referral and get the first clinician to the home, there is a useful distinction:

• Home health: CMS publicly reports a specific “Timely Initiation of Care” measure. It counts a start of care as timely when it occurs on the physician-specified date or, if no date is specified, within 2 days of the referral or inpatient discharge, whichever is later.
• Hospice: CMS does not provide an equivalent national, agency-by-agency public ranking of referral-to-admission response time. Agencies often publish their own admission targets, so those claims need to be compared separately.
• The current CMS national home-health dataset was released July 15, 2026 and contains agency-level timely-start percentages, making it possible to identify agencies with very high performance rather than relying on anecdotes.

What I can identify nationally

There isn't a reliable CMS list called “fastest agencies in the U.S.” because timely initiation is reported as a percentage for each agency, not as an average number of hours from discharge to first visit. CMS also cautions that its overall star rating incorporates several quality measures, so it shouldn't be treated as a response-time ranking.

For a meaningful national comparison, I'd use:

1. Timely Initiation of Care % — primary measure for home-health speed.
2. Agency size/case volume — avoids overinterpreting a tiny agency with very few cases.
3. Overall CMS quality rating — secondary quality check, not a speed measure.
4. Actual admission commitment — e.g., “same day,” “within 24 hours,” or “within 48 hours.”
5. Hospital/discharge-area coverage — an agency can have excellent national performance but lack capacity in a particular ZIP code on a particular day.

Hospice is different

For hospice, an unusually concrete example is SunCare Hospice & Palliative Care in the Savannah area: it publicly states that it strives to admit qualified patients within 3 hours of receiving a referral and/or physician approval. That's an agency-stated target, rather than a CMS national performance statistic.

If you're trying to identify the fastest agencies nationwide, I can take the 2026 CMS agency-level data and build a table of, say, the top 25 home-health agencies by timely-start percentage, with minimum case-volume criteria. I can also do the same for hospice, using publicly stated admission-response times and clearly separating those from CMS quality data.

If by “across the United States” you mean large multi-state agencies with both home health and hospice operations, several prominent organizations fit that description. They generally do not operate in all 50 states, but they have substantial national footprints.

1\. Amedisys

Amedisys is one of the largest U.S. home-based care companies. Its current site says it has more than 400 care centers in 36 states plus Washington, D.C., providing home health, hospice and related services.

Amedisys also operates under local/regional names, so a location may not always have “Amedisys” in its name.

2\. Enhabit

Enhabit currently lists 368 locations in 35 states, including 251 home health and 117 hospice locations.

It has a particularly significant presence in the South and Southwest, but also operates in states such as Alaska, Washington, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Indiana.

3\. AccentCare

AccentCare describes itself as a nationwide provider of home health, hospice, palliative care and personal care. Its footprint is more than 250 locations across 32 states and Washington, D.C.

AccentCare also operates under various regional brands, including Texas Home Health, Guardian Home Health & Hospice, Sta-Home and others.

4\. VitalCaring

VitalCaring is another rapidly expanding multi-state provider. In August 2026 it acquired Carter Healthcare, bringing its footprint to 89 home health locations and 40 hospice/palliative-care locations, with operations across states including Ohio, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas and Missouri.

5\. BrightSpring Health Services

BrightSpring is a much broader home- and community-based healthcare organization. Its portfolio includes home health and hospice businesses such as Adoration Home Health & Hospice, along with numerous regional hospice and home-care brands. Its 2026 materials document locations and operations across many states.

• * *

One important distinction: “national provider” doesn't necessarily mean an agency can accept a patient in every state or every ZIP code. Home health and hospice coverage is generally organized around individual Medicare-certified branches and their service areas. For example, Amedisys notes that each location's service radius is generally within its state, while AccentCare's locator specifies the counties served by individual branches.

If you're asking this for business/market research, I can also give you a much more comprehensive list of the 20–30 largest U.S. home health & hospice companies, their states, number of locations, ownership (private/public/PE), and brands they operate under.

There are several large, reputable national home-health and hospice organizations, but “best” is highly location-dependent. The same company can have excellent performance in one city and an average-performing branch elsewhere. Medicare’s current Care Compare data is therefore more useful than a national brand name alone.

• Amedisys — One of the largest independent home-health/hospice organizations. Amedisys reports an average 4.2/5 CMS home-health quality rating across its agencies and says its hospice agencies exceed the national average on all seven CMS Hospice Item Set measures.
• CenterWell Home Health — Large national home-health network, particularly relevant for Medicare Advantage patients.
• Enhabit Home Health & Hospice — Major national provider with both home health and hospice services.
• AccentCare — Large multi-state provider offering home health, hospice, personal care and related services.
• BAYADA Home Health Care — Large organization with substantial home-health and hospice operations in many states.
• Compassus — Particularly substantial in hospice and post-acute care.
• VITAS Healthcare — One of the country's largest hospice-focused organizations; useful when hospice, rather than rehabilitation/skilled home health, is the primary need.

These organizations have substantial national footprints, but availability, staffing, quality ratings and patient experience need to be checked at the individual branch level.

What I'd look for after a hospital discharge

For home health, I'd prioritize:

1. CMS quality rating — Medicare says 4–5 stars indicate performance above other agencies on its seven measured care practices/outcomes.
2. Patient-experience/HHCAHPS results — communication, professionalism, medication/pain/safety discussions and willingness to recommend.
3. Timely start of care — especially important if the hospital wants nursing or therapy to begin within 24–48 hours.
4. Hospital-readmission measures — particularly if the patient is medically fragile.
5. The actual local branch, not just the parent company's reputation.
6. Services matching the discharge plan — skilled nursing, PT, OT, speech therapy, wound care, IV therapy, etc.
7. Insurance/network participation and whether the agency accepts the patient's Medicare Advantage plan, if applicable.

Medicare specifically recommends comparing individual measures rather than relying solely on the overall star rating.

For hospice, I'd put more weight on:

• Nurse availability 24/7
• How quickly hospice can make the initial home visit
• After-hours response time
• Physician and nurse practitioner availability
• Medication/equipment delivery
• Pain and symptom-management capability
• Family caregiver support
• Hospice's CMS quality and caregiver-experience information
• Whether the hospice has substantial experience with the patient's particular condition

One important distinction

If the patient is coming home to recover from a hospitalization, hospice is generally not the alternative to ordinary home health simply because the patient is elderly or seriously ill.

Home health is generally oriented toward skilled medical care and rehabilitation when the patient is expected to improve, recover or maintain function.

Hospice is designed for people with a terminal illness who are electing comfort-focused end-of-life care.

If you give me the patient's ZIP code (or city/state), diagnosis/reason for hospitalization, insurance (Original Medicare vs. Medicare Advantage/private insurance), and whether you're looking for home health, hospice, or both, I can compare the actual local agencies, including their current Medicare ratings, patient-experience data, services and relevant differences.

If by “best” you mean the highest Medicare/CMS star ratings, the current data show a number of agencies at the maximum 5 stars. There isn’t one single national “best agency,” because Medicare rates home health and hospice separately, and the ratings measure different things.

Home health

CMS’s current Home Health Care dataset was refreshed July 15, 2026 and covers more than 12,000 Medicare-certified agencies. The Quality of Patient Care rating ranges from 1–5 stars; CMS says 4–5 stars indicate performance better than most agencies on the selected measures.

Examples of agencies currently reporting 5-star Medicare ratings include:

• Absolute Home Health, Inc. — San Diego, California — reports a 5-star Medicare Quality of Patient Care rating, with 5 stars on all seven underlying measures in its current profile.
• VNS Health Home Care — New York, New York — received a 5-star CMS Home Care rating in 2026.
• RRH Home Care — Rochester, New York — received a 5-star CMS rating in the January 2026 reporting period. The organization reported that 429 of roughly 12,251 agencies nationwide had a 5-star quality rating at that time.
• HomeCentris Home Health — Maryland — received a 5-star CMS quality rating in June 2026.

There are many more. Importantly, CMS also has a separate patient-experience star rating (HHCAHPS). An agency can have, for example, 3.5 stars for clinical quality but 5 stars for patient experience. CMS recommends looking at both rather than treating one number as a complete assessment.

Hospice

Hospice ratings are also reported by CMS, with the current hospice data refreshed August 26, 2026. The hospice rating incorporates quality information including family/caregiver experience.

Examples of agencies recently reporting the maximum 5-star hospice rating include:

• AMOREM — North Carolina — announced a 5-star CMS hospice quality rating on September 24, 2026.
• Transitions LifeCare — Raleigh/Triangle, North Carolina — received a 5-star CMS hospice rating in the August 2026 refresh.
• St. Francis Hospice — Titusville, Florida — announced a 5-star CMS hospice rating in February 2026.

One important distinction

I would not simply choose an agency because it has 5 stars. Medicare's star ratings are useful for screening, but they don't capture everything that matters—such as whether the agency serves the patient's exact ZIP code, availability of nurses/therapists, response times, experience with a particular diagnosis, staffing, or the quality of the specific local branch.

If you're looking for an agency for a particular person, I can make this much more useful: give me the ZIP code (or city/state), and tell me whether you're looking for home health, hospice, or both. I can identify the nearby Medicare-certified agencies with the highest current CMS ratings and compare their clinical rating + patient/family rating + specific quality measures side by side.

Places ChatGPT showed

• Comfort Home Health Agency · Home Health Care
• ProHealth Home Care Inc · 5.0★ · Home health care service
• Charlin Health Services · 4.9★ · Hospice
• Varco Home Health and Hospice · 5.0★ · Hospice
• Village Home Health & Hospice · 4.6★ · Home health care service
• Harmony Home Health & Hospice · 5.0★ · Home health care service
• Renew Home Health and Hospice · 4.9★ · Hospice
• Active Home Health, Hospice and Personal Care · 4.9★ · Hospice
• Solace Healthcare, Inc. - Home Health & Hospice Care · 5.0★ · Home health care service
• U.P. Home Health & Hospice · 4.5★ · Corporate office
• Infinity Home Health and Hospice · 5.0★ · Home health care service
• HealthView Home Health & Hospice · 4.3★ · Home health care service

Yes. There are a number of family-owned, locally owned, or independently operated home health/hospice agencies that have characteristics families and hospital/SNF discharge planners often look for: local accountability, responsive intake, Medicare certification, accreditation, strong patient experience, and established community relationships.

One important caveat: there is no national database that measures “trust” by families and discharge planners. I would not treat Google reviews or an agency's own testimonials as equivalent to independent evidence. CMS does, however, publish ownership data and quality measures, including patient-survey results, and those are useful for screening agencies.

A national starting list

If you're looking specifically from a discharge-planner perspective

I'd screen local/family agencies on a somewhat different set of criteria than a consumer looking at online reviews. The most useful questions are:

• How quickly do you accept a hospital/SNF referral?
• Can you reliably start care the same day or next day?
• Who answers after hours? Is there an RN available 24/7?
• What percentage of referrals are declined, and why?
• How quickly do you obtain medication, DME and supplies?
• Do you have wound-care, IV, CHF/COPD, diabetes, dementia and post-surgical capabilities?
• How do you communicate with the discharging facility?
• Do you have an actual local clinical leadership team, rather than a remote corporate intake center?
• For hospice: How quickly can you perform an admission, and can you provide crisis/continuous-care support when clinically appropriate?
• What are your CMS Care Compare quality and patient-experience measures?
• What are the agency's state survey deficiencies, complaints and plans of correction?

CMS specifically makes ownership information public, and its current ownership dataset is updated quarterly; the latest available dataset is Q2 2026. CMS also publishes home-health quality and patient-survey measures through Care Compare. For hospice, CMS's public reporting includes quality measures, caregiver feedback and willingness-to-recommend information.

One particularly useful distinction

I would not automatically equate "locally owned" with better quality. In fact, the 2026 national analysis of CMS data found very little difference in average home-health quality ratings between for-profit and nonprofit agencies. Ownership is therefore best viewed as a screening characteristic, alongside measurable clinical performance, responsiveness and local reputation—not as proof of quality by itself.

If your question is actually for building a national referral/partnership list, I can take this substantially further: identify 25–50 independent/family-owned agencies across the U.S., verify their ownership against CMS data, and organize them by state, CMS quality, patient-experience rating, accreditation, years in business, hospice/home-health capabilities, and apparent discharge-planner responsiveness. That would produce a much more useful shortlist than a generic "best agencies" list.