Family caregivers provide an estimated $600 billion in unpaid care annually and are essential to patient outcomes. Nearly one in four Americans serves in this capacity, often without training, support, or formal recognition, according to the Caregiving in the US 2025 report released by the National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC) and AARP.

NAC and the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC) released a new report, “Not Just Visitors: Integrating Family Caregivers in Care Delivery and Design,” revealing the critical gaps between the immense value caregivers provide and the systemic support they receive. The report outlines actionable strategies to move beyond acknowledgment to meaningful integration of caregivers as vital members of the care team.

The report also identified the following “key challenges” for this integration:

• Limited familiarity among family caregivers with best practices in caregiving
• Caregivers face significant challenges in maintaining employment or meeting other obligations while supporting caregiving
• Training alone might not incentivize or support adequate, high-quality caregiver engagement
• Caregiver burden is significant and while proactive planning strategies like advance care planning exist, these tools are largely oriented around individuals experiencing illness rather than caregivers
• Caregivers remain underrecognized in healthcare models

Read the full report and explore proposed solutions here.