March 08, 2021
According to the NHPCO, “49.1% of Medicare decedents received one day or more of hospice care and were enrolled in hospice at the time of death.”
This stat shows just how many families rely on hospice staff and nurses for support during their times of loss. But they also depend on you.
Together, your funeral home and hospice can create a network of care for each family.
But to achieve this, you must have a strong partnership with the hospice organizations in your area.
In 2017, we interviewed Erika Rader, Community Outreach Coordinator from Rader Funeral Home at the time, to discuss how they have such a strong relationship with hospice. Nearly a decade later, let’s see if the strategies are still relevant today!
One funeral home's journey to a better outreach program
Rader Funeral Home in Longview, Texas, developed a hospice outreach program over a decade ago to provide better communication among funeral professionals, medical staff, and families and enhanced care and support once the loss occurred.
If you're looking to create a smoother transition of care for families receiving hospice services, you’ll find these tips useful!
Tip #1: Connect and communicate
What is essential for your staff when it comes to completing tasks correctly and on time? If we had to guess, communication would be a big factor.
If you can communicate as a team, you're able to make sure no details fall through the cracks, and each family receives the best care.
The same goes for working with any vendor outside your funeral home, especially hospice. You may work with one local hospice organization, or several, but without relationships, the transfer of care can become difficult (or even non-existent!).
Back in 2017, Erika shared how presentations and volunteering helped her connect with hospice programs in her community.
"I gave general presentations to keep those relationships strong, and volunteered with the hospices on events. I handed out planning guides for the nurses to give to families, so we already had these existing relationships, which was great."
Tip #2: Create a simpler process
Effective communication is the first step in building a strong outreach program. But you should also consider the process your funeral home follows when collaborating with hospice.
Does hospice staff know who to contact when a death occurs, or do they face multiple hurdles that complicate the transfer process? Or are there gaps in your current processes that make certain steps of the transfer to your services difficult for families?
After identifying ways to simplify the process, you can make improvements so that hospice workers and their families find your funeral home easy and convenient to work with.
At Rader Funeral Home, one thing they did to improve processes was adding an online at-need planning technology, specifically, Passare's Planning Center. With Planning Center, both hospice workers and their families are able to get ahead on tasks like vitals, service preferences, and more from anywhere.
Learn more about Planning Center here. ->
Here’s how Erika introduced the software to hospice workers and how they responded:
“The success with the hospices has been overwhelming. I feel like Passare has opened up a whole new conversation. The hospices that I work with really love hearing about it. Before, I was covering a wide range of topics when I visited hospice centers. Now, the hospices that I have talked to want me to come back continually to talk about Passare and how we're using it with families. It’s really exciting that they're so excited about what a wonderful service this is for their families.”
But what about today? If you’re thinking hospice workers in your area won’t be as responsive, think again! Just last year, we saw a 46% increase in acceptance rates to Passare’s Planning Center, which led to over 26,000 family members, hospice workers, etc. collaborating with funeral homes online in Passare.
The complete guide to working with hospice
Learn more about ways you can use software to partner with hospice in this guide.
Tip #3: Don't hesitate to make a positive change
Incorporating anything new at your funeral home can be intimidating. And building stronger relationships with hospice may require a step outside your comfort zone.
But think of it this way, just like any relationship, a partnership with hospice takes time and change to see growth.
Start small by incorporating things from tips 1 and 2, like giving regular presentations to educate hospice programs. And once you're ready to work on your processes, don't hesitate to make a positive change. The results will be worth it!
Erika shared what it was like when they first incorporated Passare into their outreach program:
“My husband is a fourth-generation funeral director, and as we know, change in the funeral business is slow. Technology is changing our world so fast, and even being an industry that doesn't see much change, we still have to keep up with the times and what families are used to in other areas of their lives. Really, the most important thing is to care for the families and make them feel comfortable. We're in a world where everything is done electronically. I think some funeral directors may misunderstand what Passare is all about because it involves technology, but that doesn’t mean that you are taking out the human element. You still see a director; you still have that personalized care. Our directors still get to know their families, pray with their families and grieve with their families. Passare is not replacing the funeral director; it is actually enhancing that family's experience with the funeral director.”
And this remains true today! Technology is rapidly changing along with how comfortable families are with using it. For example, just last year, over 35,000 obituaries were drafted using AI in Passare, and more than 34,000 signatures were collected with eSignatures in Passare.
At the end of the day, if you can provide hospices and their families with user-friendly software that simplifies the planning process, there’s a really good chance they will use it.
When that software is Passare, you can gather information from hospice workers so that when it’s time to transfer families into your care, you'll have information organized in one central location. This allows you to focus on what truly matters - caring for the family.
Dive deeper into partnering with hospice
You’ve seen how Rader Funeral Home found success with their hospice outreach program. Now, it’s time for you to create your own plan to build a strong partnership with hospice.
In our hospice guide, explore steps you can take to build an effective plan, ways to work with hospice and their families online, and a few talking points to help you teach hospice about funeral service!
Ready to explore software that can help you connect with hospice providers and their families while also improving processes at your funeral home? Get a demo of Passare today and see the software in action.
