Pre-need conversations with families in hospice care

Let the family start the conversation

State funeral laws treat approaching a dying person or their family for business as solicitation. Texas defines solicitation as contact by a funeral home that the person near death or the family did not start, made to secure the funeral or in a way that might influence their choice, and forbids it except under a preneed sales permit. California makes soliciting after a death or while a death is impending grounds for discipline. Florida disciplines solicitation that takes advantage of a customer's emotional vulnerability.

• Wait for the family, or the patient, to contact you.
• Do not ask hospice staff to arrange introductions or pass on your sales material.
• Make it easy to reach you: a clear phone number, a page on your website about planning during hospice care, and plain prices.

Sources: [4], [6], [5]

Timing and tone

• Offer to meet where the family is comfortable: your funeral home, their home, or by phone.
• Keep the first meeting short. Ask what matters to them and what they already know they want.
• Let the patient take part if they wish. Some want to choose readings, music or a burial place.
• Stop when they are tired. Nothing has to be signed at the first meeting.
• Write down what they chose, so the family has it when the death comes.

The FTC Funeral Rule applies to pre-need too

The Funeral Rule covers both pre-need and at-need arrangements. The main duties:

• Give the General Price List when you begin discussing prices, the type of service or disposition, or specific goods and services. This applies wherever the discussion happens, including a family's home.
• Give accurate price information by phone to anyone who asks.
• Offer the casket price list before showing caskets, and the outer burial container list before showing containers.
• Let families choose only the items they want, apart from the basic services fee and anything required by law.
• Do not say embalming is required when it is not. No state law requires routine embalming for every death.
• Accept a casket or urn the family bought elsewhere, without an extra fee.
• Give an itemized Statement of Funeral Goods and Services Selected at the end of the arrangement.

The Rule does not apply to the business of insurance, and many states have their own rules on pre-need contracts and trusts. Check your state regulator.

Sources: [1], [2], [3]

What to offer

• Planning without payment: a written record of wishes, with the price list, that the family keeps.
• Pre-need contracts or funding, if the family wants them and your state allows it, explained in plain words.
• A clear note of what happens at the time of death: whom to call, and how the hospice nurse and your staff will work together. See what happens when a hospice patient dies at home.

Sources: [1], [2]