AARP Assesses Utilization of New Medicare Caregiver Training Services

AARP has released a report that investigates the uptake and need for Caregiver Training Services (CTS). CTSs are a new addition to Medicare, allowing providers to get reimbursement for training family caregivers.

Who Is a Family Caregiver?

For CTS purposes, a family caregiver is “one who furnishes unpaid assistance to a person with a chronic illness or disabling condition and is in a position to assist the patient in carrying out an established treatment plan or plan of care.”

The Need for Training

Family caregivers are increasingly involved in care delivery and their contribution to the health system is estimated at 49.5 billion hours and $1 trillion annually. Over 50% of these caregivers take on medical and nursing tasks, with lower-income caregivers and women more likely to be providing such care. Historically, they were tackling these tasks with limited or no training.

What AARP Found

AARP found that initial uptake of the new reimbursement was low but grew steadily between its introduction in the first quarter of 2024 through the end of the study in the second quarter of 2025. Factors contributing to the low initial uptake included lack of awareness, confusion about what providers were eligible and what documentation they had to provide, complications integrating the training into provider practices, and difficulty identifying family caregivers.

Looking Forward

The report lays out opportunities for Medicare, providers, caregivers, and advocates to increase utilization of CTS and other caregiver supports. As more and more care shifts to the home—and as state budgets get squeezed, eroding access to the professional home care workforce for people dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid—these training services are increasingly important.

Medicare Rights supports greater access to training as well as other services that can help family caregivers safely provide care for their loved ones. State and federal resources must also flow to the health care workforce, including home workers, to ensure that families are not overburdened and people without family caregivers can access the supports and services they need to live and thrive in their communities.