How Hospice Will Impact Your Assisted Living Business

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As an assisted living business owner, understanding the relationship between hospice care and your facility is crucial for long-term success. Hospice services can provide significant benefits to your residents and even enhance the quality of care you offer, but it also brings new challenges and considerations.

In this blog, we’ll explore how hospice care impacts your business and what steps you can take to successfully integrate it into your assisted living facility.

Let’s get started! 🚀

Check out this video, too;

Why Understanding Hospice Care is Crucial for Your Business

Hospice care is designed to support residents who are nearing the end of their lives, providing comfort and quality care during a difficult time. If you're running an assisted living facility, offering hospice care can set your business apart from others in the area.

Here’s why it’s important to understand hospice care:

✅ Improves Resident Care – Hospice can provide a higher level of care for terminally ill residents, ensuring they receive the attention and support they need.
✅ Attracts New Residents – Many families prefer a facility that offers hospice care, as it allows their loved ones to stay in a familiar environment during their final days.
✅ Expands Your Services – By offering hospice services, you broaden the range of care options you provide, which can be a selling point for potential residents and their families.

Need help? Download our Business Plan Checklist to see how you can plan for hospice care integration in your business!

Step 1: Understand the Legal and Compliance Requirements for Hospice Care

Before you can start offering hospice care, it's essential to understand the legal and regulatory requirements. Hospice care involves complex regulations, and you’ll need to ensure your facility is in compliance.

Here’s what you need to know:

📌 Licensing – Your state may require special licenses for providing hospice services.
📌 Contracts with Hospice Providers – If you’re not providing hospice care directly, you’ll need to partner with licensed hospice providers. Make sure these contracts are clear and comply with local regulations.
📌 Training and Staffing – Your staff will need specific training to work alongside hospice providers and to handle the emotional and medical needs of residents in hospice care.

Tip: Working with an attorney familiar with healthcare regulations can ensure you're compliant from the start.

Step 2: Integrating Hospice Care into Your Operations

If you choose to offer hospice care directly or work with hospice providers, it’s essential to integrate this service smoothly into your daily operations. This might require adjusting your operations, policies, and procedures.

Here’s what to consider:

📌 Staffing – You may need to hire additional staff or train existing staff to handle end-of-life care. This includes making sure caregivers are equipped to manage the physical and emotional aspects of hospice care.
📌 Resident Assessment – Regularly assess the needs of your residents to determine if they require hospice services. Your staff should be well-trained to recognize the signs that a resident may need end-of-life care.
📌 Communication with Families – It’s important to have clear and compassionate communication with families when it comes to hospice care. Make sure they understand the services you offer and how you will provide support during this difficult time.

Step 3: Financial Considerations and Reimbursement

Offering hospice services also means understanding how to manage the financial aspects. There are various reimbursement options, and knowing how to navigate this landscape is key to ensuring your business remains profitable.

Here are the main considerations:

📌 Medicare & Medicaid – Many hospice services are covered by Medicare and Medicaid, but reimbursement rates can vary. Be sure to understand the guidelines for billing hospice care.
📌 Private Insurance – Some residents may have private insurance that covers hospice care, so it’s essential to work with insurance providers to ensure proper reimbursement.
📌 Operational Costs – Hospice care may increase operational costs, especially if you are offering it directly. Factor in these costs when projecting your financials.

Tip: Use our Underwriting Calculator to model the financial impact of adding hospice care to your facility!

Step 4: Marketing Hospice Services to Attract New Residents

Hospice care can be a key selling point for your assisted living facility. Make sure to communicate this offering effectively to potential residents and their families.

Here’s how to market hospice services:

📌 Highlight Benefits – Show potential residents how hospice services can improve the quality of life for their loved ones.
📌 Build Relationships with Hospice Providers – If you're not offering hospice care directly, partnering with local providers can enhance your business reputation and ensure a smooth transition for residents needing hospice care.
📌 Create Educational Content – Educate families on the benefits of hospice care through blog posts, webinars, and informational brochures.

Next Steps: Take Action Today!

Ready to integrate hospice services into your assisted living business?

Here’s what you need to do:

✅ Step 1: Download the Business Plan Checklist to start planning.
✅ Step 2: Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.
✅ Step 3: Follow this guide, take action, and bring your vision to life!

Got questions? Drop them in the comments below! ⬇️

▶️ Watch on YouTube

Show full transcript 👇

Transcript

00:00:02
hey friend it is Brandon Gustafson with Assisted Living investing excited to have you here with me on the channel this Tuesday Morning uh for our live today's video we're going to be getting into the topic of hospice and assisted living how is hospice going to affect your Assisted Living business I wanted to get into that topic with you today uh it's something that I see people ask frequently and what does that look like for people so let me get ready to share my screen here and sorry I don't have

00:00:30
this teed up have a bit of a hectic morning this morning but wanted to get uh this uh out to you uh for the day so uh let's jump into this before I get started though I want to remind you to get over to the website Assisted Living investing. net slbp checklist you can get the business planning checklist to kind of help you out through your process of building a business plan which is one of the most important things that you can do as you get started on your journey to investing in assistant building now uh why am I

00:01:01
qualified to kind of teach you about this information my name is Brandon Guston I own and operate two assisted living facilities and I do that out of state I live in Utah one of my facilities is in Colorado the other one is in Idaho been operating since 2020 and uh have been able to secure over1 and A5 million dollar in SBA funding so I know that process very well uh and have a have a really good process for for kind of teaching that actually on my website I have an accelerator course and a big part of that is getting funding

00:01:31
and talking through that and we have a module specifically for SBA funding so make sure you go and check that out I'll have a link down below also have a m Masters in healthcare administration have worked in healthcare for oh and since about 2010 2011 so a long time and uh I've also worked on hospice contracts uh so for a period of about 15 months that's what I did I worked specifically uh from an administrative standpoint on hospice contracts so I'm pretty familiar with that world something I didn't

00:02:05
understand previously but have a lot of experience with it now uh so I just want to share this information with you if you are new to this whole thing of Assisted Living type in newbie below if you're here and if you are uh just kind of you've been doing this for a while and you need help with operations and you're you're wondering what this is looking like with hospice type in uh operator down below as well uh love to see who's here and if you're here live make sure you type in some questions

00:02:33
I'll have some time for Q&A here at the um at the end of the video uh now let's jump over into this first off I want to level set with you what is Assisted Living so assisted living is really at its core it's assistance with ADLs the activities of daily living and this could be things like eating toileting dressing um medication management all of those things kind of fall into this bucket of activities of daily living and the reason why somebody would need to be in assisted living is they just can't do

00:03:07
those things by themselves anymore and sometimes loved ones despite wanting to do that it's a lot if you if you've ever been around somebody that needs that type of care and needs that consistent care it's it's a big full-time job and it takes a lot of your time to be able to go in and and help somebody with it that's why we have Assisted Living that's why we provide this service so we can help those who are in need and need this assistance so that's what assisted living is at its core is helping people

00:03:39
out with those activities of daily living the ADLs as as we call them in the industry it also provides people a place to live so that they can function and and do the things that they would like to we provide them with meals uh we're providing them with any other services really we are there to help provide them with a life that that is as normal as it can be while giving them the assistance that they need that's a lot of what we do in assisted living and that's the purpose of assisted living

00:04:10
now what is hospice hospice typically is going to be at the end of life and I say typically because as I mentioned I worked on a contract with hospice and as I was looking at it I I've seen people be on hospice for years multiple years and so typically yes it is something that is end of life but that is not always the case sometimes people will be on hospice for a really long time but a a lot at its core what we're trying to do with hospice is make people comfortable give them the things that

00:04:41
they need um provide some extra assistance as well um sometimes when somebody's at the end of life they have a lot harder time moving or getting out of bed or dressing and sometimes you need multiple people to do that and in an assisted living facility especially the kind that you are looking at like a boutique style a small residential style even a care home you just don't have the staff for it and hospice Personnel are able to come in and give extra assistance to your facility in helping

00:05:12
care for those residents who are on hospice and so at its core hospice is there to make a resident comfortable give them the things that they need help them out with care but also you know potentially things like spiritual um things as they get to end of life and have questions and and want to know someone those types of things it those are questions that come up when people get to the end of life and you want to be sensitive to that and hospice is a great way for you to provide that type of care now let's talk about how hospice

00:05:44
affects Assisted Living getting hospice inside of your assisted living and is that possible and absolutely yes it is you can have residence in your facility be on hospice this is actually very common we had a a resident in our home she's been on hospice uh actually just passed away um I found about found out about it over the weekend uh but she was on hospice I want to say for 6 to n months uh had been on it for quite a while and uh those hospice Personnel were coming into the facility and helping out with that particular

00:06:16
resident so that that they were comfortable and they had the things that they needed to live a comfortable life at the end of their life hospice what they do well they will come in and they provide that extra assistance as I mentioned um you know maybe you need somebody that just can't get out of bed or maybe they have a catheter or they need a bed pan and hospice is going to come in and help assist with some of those types of things and providing care that may be beyond what your Care staff

00:06:47
can do at an assisted living facility or they need help doing because of the Staffing situation at the house and and so they're able to come in and give some assistance there the resident can can stay in assisted living the entire time they are on hospice where they may need to bump up to a different level of care is if they really have some extra care that is needed and they need to bump up into a nursing home type of a situation going to a skilled nursing facility and we talked about that in a previous live

00:07:18
so make sure you go and watch that video I'll try to remember to link it up above uh so that you can go and grab that but I did a video of nursing home versus assisted living and how you differentiate between those do things but just because somebody's on hospice does not mean they need to move to a nursing home or a Skilled Nursing Facility they can still stay in your assisted living home really as well there's no change to the billing rates so you don't have to worry about how crap I've got somebody coming in

00:07:47
I've got to pay this other person um and then I'm going to get I'm going to collect less because this resident is on hospice that's not the case at all you continue billing the same rate that you would for that Resident uh private pay or medic decade it doesn't matter you're going to continue billing that same amount and the hospice is going to get paid um separately hospit will get paid by Medicare um typically there are some states that are shifting over to a med Medicare Advantage um process for this

00:08:15
is kind of a pilot program that I was working on and so that's something that that goes through there but it is a Medicare benefit hospices and so you are you're not losing any extra money or anything like that you're not there's no exra cost to you you're not losing money when you have a resident on hospice so if you need if you have a resident that needs hospice don't be scared of it make sure you're providing and and getting them in front of the people they're

00:08:41
going to be able to provide them with the care that they need so that they can benefit from that and move forward in in their process of of living and getting to end of life as well now caring for a resident who has hospice how how do you do that you want to treat them like normal they you don't want to I mean unless they need some specific type of attention or they request it just treat them as you always have love them and and give them the care that they need so that you can help them through the process you want to

00:09:11
make them comfortable make sure that they have all of those things that they need because typically as I mentioned people on hospice are at the end of life they are likely going to die within the next six months of getting that diagnosis and needing to go on hospice that's just a fact that that's what the the numbers would would tell you so you want to be aware of that and you want to provide them with that care and you want to communicate all this to the family as well because this is the end of their

00:09:39
life and and sometimes when people are an assisted living family forgets about them and that sounds harsh and it's not because they want to or or anything like that they just get busy and and they'll come visit them frequently in the beginning uh but sometimes as time goes on they they just forget and life gets in the way but as they get to the end of life and if somebody has a hospice diagnosis you want to be communicating that to the family so that they can come and and pay their respects and and be

00:10:07
with them as they get to end of life so that's something you also want to make sure that you are aware of and make sure that you are doing as as you have residents who are on hospice really though treat them like normal give them the care that they need make sure they're comfortable and and just love them and and make sure that they know that they're a valuable part of your family now if they're any questions want to make sure that I grab those here uh this is a little bit earlier than I

00:10:33
typically do these lives I just have a really hectic week wanted to get this out really hectic day hectic week I wanted to get this live out um if you are not able to join live make sure you comment questions down below and I will get back to them um via text or uh if it's something that warrants its own video I'll be sure to add that to my queue of videos to help you out through the process learning more also want to invite you to join the Facebook group if you're not a part of that I know so some

00:10:59
of you are only on YouTube and following me uh we have a Facebook group as well it's called Assisted Living investing um and it is there for oops sorry um it's Assisted Living investing it's unlocking time and Financial Freedom through Assisted Living so I want to make sure that you are aware of that uh as well uh as you're on your journey to getting to uh just kind of helping people out uh through through everything that you're trying to do here um in in this industry I I love helping people and I've got

00:11:31
some exciting news and exciting things that are going to come up on the the Facebook group here in the next week or two so make sure that you are over there uh I want to remind you as well to get over to the website Assisted Living investing. netb checklist you can get the business planning checklist to help you out through the process of starting your facility and getting that business plan created make sure you like the video subscribe and ring the bell as well so you get notified every time we

00:11:57
go live and put out more content so I can help you along your journey to getting you know investing in Assisted Living I want to thank you for watching excited to help you along your journey and I will talk to you next time thanks for watching and have a

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