Bereavement and Family Support Bundle for Hospice
Automated, compassionate outreach that carries every bereaved family from the first week through the first anniversary: scheduled check-ins, sensitive date acknowledgments, grief content, coordinator workflows, and the 13-month program documentation your surveyors ask to see.
Three obligations. One year. One record.
The comprehensive assessment covers the family's bereavement needs, not just the patient. Bereavement starts at admission, not at the time of death, and the risk picture (low, moderate, high) is reassessed as the journey changes.
Bereavement services must be available for up to one year after the death, and the cadence must reflect the assessment: not one size fits all, but responsive to each family's identified needs as they change.
If it is not documented, it did not happen. Survey expects proof of what was assessed, what the plan included, what outreach occurred, and how it aligned to needs over time.
"Most organizations don't struggle with understanding these requirements. The challenge is operationalizing them consistently over that thirteen-month period." Michelle Pickering, COO, Momentum Healthcare & Technology Consulting, hospice and home-based care executive of 20+ years
The check-in is automated. The care never is.
Every bereaved person gets their own 13-month plan, built from templates you customize, in a high, moderate, or low risk lane. Check-ins and grief rescreens are scored, and the score routes what happens next: no one waits in a form queue, and no one gets a robot when they need a person.
If the assigned person is not logged in, the escalation follows them by SMS, email, and push; the team sees every open escalation and can take over or reassign; and the time from trigger to human response is measured and reported, which is the number a surveyor never expects you to have. When a screen goes unanswered, it falls back to a call by staff or by AI voice agent, and the AI never calls anyone at high risk. Families who prefer the old way opt out into a manual process that stays tracked. Your organization's logo rides in every text, there is no app to download, and everything happens in a HIPAA-compliant environment reached by one link.
"Technology doesn't replace the human connection. It protects it." John Lovitsch, QliqSOFT product manager, from the bereavement webinar
Bereavement 2.0: Reimagining Care After the Loss
The session behind this page: Michelle Pickering, COO, and Megan Casey, Executive Consultant, of Momentum Healthcare & Technology Consulting, on what the Conditions of Participation expect and where a bereavement coordinator's week goes, and John Lovitsch, QliqSOFT product manager, walking one family's 13 months live in the Bereavement Center. Hosted by Ben Henson.
Everything the year after needs.
The family’s journey with your hospice doesn’t end at the death. Neither does the program, the documentation, or the relationship. Related reading: Is your bereavement program still mailing into the void?
Fewer than half of families use bereavement support. The ones you carry become your advocates.
The Conditions of Participation require bereavement services for up to a year following the death, under an organized program with qualified professionals. Yet most families never engage: they didn’t know it existed, the offer arrived buried in a mailing, or a phone call felt impossible. Text-first outreach solves all three, and the thirteenth month carries families through the hardest day of the entire journey. (Cherlin et al., Journal of Palliative Medicine, 2007)
- ✓Every bereaved person arrives through one review queue, from your EMR, an import, or a sign-up, so nobody falls through an intake crack and no family hears from you on bad data, in any language
- ✓A grieving spouse who cannot face a phone call can answer a gentle text, on their own time
- ✓Acute grief surfaces to your coordinator with context, so the humans spend their hours counseling instead of dialing
- ✓Program completion, contact frequency, and response analytics turn ‘we have a bereavement program’ into evidence a surveyor can hold
- ✓Post-bereavement satisfaction surveys close the loop, and review invitations go to every family, never gated, in line with Google’s policies and the FTC’s Consumer Review Rule
Built from platform capabilities you can explore.
Thirty minutes, the bereavement bundle, live in the product.
Short stays don't shrink the obligation. They multiply it.
A five-day stay creates the same bereavement obligation as a six-month stay. The shorter your average length of stay, the faster patients turn over, and every death adds survivors to a program that runs for 13 months after the census stops counting them.
Be present for the year after.
See the 13-month journey, coordinator workflows, and compliance tracking run end to end, mapped to your bereavement program.
Bereavement support, answered.
Does the bereavement program integrate with our EMR?
Yes. Bereaved contacts can be pulled from the EMR to enroll, and depending on the system, discrete data points, statuses, and updates can post back, so the bereavement record and the clinical record stay aligned.
Who receives an escalation, and what if they are unavailable?
Escalations route by rule to the right discipline, a chaplain for one kind, a social worker for another. If the assignee is not logged in they are chased by SMS, email, and push notification; the whole team can see open escalations and take over or reassign; and message timing controls keep automated touchpoints inside office hours.
How does the risk scoring work?
Each bereaved person is screened with a validated grief screen and rescreened on a schedule. Scores place people in a high, moderate, or low risk lane and suggest moves between lanes. Each agency chooses how lane changes happen: automatically, suggest and confirm (the default), or manual only. A move to higher risk always waits for staff to confirm, and high-risk results are reviewed question by question.
Can families opt out of the automated outreach?
Yes, at any time, and opting out does not mean falling out: they move to a manual outreach process that stays tracked in the same record, so the 13-month program and its documentation continue either way.
Can the AI voice agent call bereaved families?
Yes, to complete a grief screen when a text or email link goes unanswered. The call says up front that it is automated and offers a person right away. If it hears distress, it warm-transfers to the on-call counselor. Calls run only within agency hours, are recorded with consent and transcribed onto the plan, and never go to anyone at high risk or anyone who has opted out.
Do families need to download an app?
No. Families get links by text or email and respond in their browser, with nothing to download or log into. Your team works in the web application.
Can we support people who aren't on our census?
Yes. The Community program serves anyone seeking grief support, with its own dashboard, groups, waitlists, and Community Board Report. Community records stay separate and never appear in compliance reports or survey exports.