Custom Hospice Software Solutions for Agencies and HealthTech Companies
Arkenea designs and builds custom hospice software solutions for hospice agencies, palliative care programs, and healthtech companies across the United States. From point of care EMR documentation and IDG workflows to billing automation, RCM, and family engagement, every platform we deliver is HIPAA compliant by architecture and shaped around how hospice teams actually work in the field. Healthcare is not one of our verticals. It is the only thing we have done for 15 years.
Request a QuoteWhy Hospice Organizations Choose Arkenea
Hospice is one of the most operationally distinct corners of healthcare. Care happens in patient homes and facilities rather than exam rooms, reimbursement runs on per diem levels rather than fee for service claims, and the regulatory framework, from the Medicare Conditions of Participation to the HOPE assessment and CAHPS Hospice survey, exists nowhere else in medicine. A development partner that has to learn those realities on your budget is an expensive way to build software. Our healthcare software development team starts your project already knowing them.
Post Acute Workflow Fluency
Our analysts and engineers have spent 15 years inside healthcare workflows, including agency operations platforms for home based care. We understand IDG meeting cadences, visit documentation in homes with poor connectivity, on call coordination, and the handoffs between clinical, billing, and bereavement teams. You will not spend your first three months explaining what a Notice of Election is.
Compliance as Architecture
HIPAA compliance is an architectural decision we make on day one, not a checkbox before launch. Encryption, role based access, audit logging, and minimum necessary data handling are designed into the foundation, alongside the hospice specific requirements: HOPE assessment timing, CAHPS Hospice vendor feeds, and documentation that stands up to a Medicare audit.
Discovery First Engagement
Every project begins with a paid discovery phase that produces a functional specification before you commit to a build. You see the scope, the screens, and the fixed price before development starts. Agencies that quote hospice software from a two page brief are guessing, and the client pays for the guess in change orders.
What Does Hospice Management Software Do?
Hospice management software runs the full operational life of a hospice agency: referral intake and eligibility, admissions and consent, interdisciplinary care planning, point of care clinical documentation, medication management, visit scheduling, billing and revenue cycle, quality reporting, volunteer coordination, and bereavement support for families after a patient's death. It is the system of record from the first referral call through the final bereavement contact, typically 13 months after the patient passes.
What separates hospice agency software from general medical software is the shape of the work. The patient is at home or in a facility, so documentation happens on phones and tablets in the field, often offline. The unit of payment is a day of care at one of four levels rather than a procedure. The care team is an interdisciplinary group of nurses, aides, social workers, chaplains, and volunteers that must formally review every care plan on a regulated cadence. Hospice patient management software that ignores any of these realities pushes staff back into paper and spreadsheets.
The buyer's choice is between platform products from established vendors and custom hospice software built around your agency's exact workflows. The sections below cover what we build, and the comparison further down gives you an honest framework for that decision.
Hospice Software Modules We Develop
We build complete hospice platforms and standalone modules that plug into the systems you already run. Every module below can be delivered on its own or as part of an end to end build, for a single agency or as a multi tenant product you take to market.
Hospice EMR Software
Point of care clinical documentation built for the field: visit notes that work offline and sync when connectivity returns, hospice specific assessments, care plans that update from visit documentation, medication management with interaction checks, and IDG meeting preparation that assembles each patient's story automatically instead of through hours of chart review.
Hospice Billing Software
Billing automation shaped by Medicare hospice rules: Notice of Election filing within the 5 day window, per diem billing across all four levels of care, service intensity add on payments, sequential monthly claims, room and board pass through for facility patients, and aggregate cap tracking so leadership sees exposure long before year end.
Hospice RCM Software
Revenue cycle tools covering eligibility verification, authorization tracking for commercial and Medicaid payers, claim scrubbing and submission through your clearinghouse, denial management worklists, and AR follow up automation. Clean claims and timely NOEs are the difference between predictable cash flow and payment gaps an agency cannot absorb.
Hospice CRM Software
Referral and relationship management for the growth side of the agency: referral source tracking across hospitals, physicians, facilities, and ACOs, liaison activity management, conversion analytics from referral to admission, and marketing workflows that respect the sensitivity this care category demands.
Care Management Software for Hospice Patients
Care coordination built around the patient rather than the visit: symptom and pain trend tracking, care plan goals reviewed at every IDG cycle, on call documentation, DME and supply management, and alerts when a patient's trajectory suggests a level of care change. This is where custom software most outperforms generic platforms.
Scheduling and Field Visit Management
Visit scheduling that accounts for discipline, geography, continuity, and frequency orders, with mobile apps for the field team, electronic visit verification where states require it, and route level views that cut windshield time. Built with our healthcare mobile app development team.
Family Engagement and Bereavement
Secure family portals and messaging that keep loved ones informed without violating HIPAA, education content delivery, satisfaction touchpoints, and bereavement workflows that manage the 13 months of follow up support agencies owe families, with outreach schedules, documentation, and volunteer assignment in one place.
Compliance and Quality Reporting
HOPE assessment workflows with timing windows tracked automatically, CAHPS Hospice survey vendor feeds, Conditions of Participation documentation trails, election statement and certification tracking, and quality dashboards that show survey readiness continuously rather than in the panic before an audit.
Hospice and Palliative Care Software in One Platform
Most agencies no longer run hospice alone. Palliative care programs, home health lines, and community based services share patients, staff, and referral sources with the hospice benefit, but they bill differently and document differently. Palliative care is typically reimbursed through physician fee schedules rather than per diem levels, follows different documentation requirements, and serves patients who may transition to hospice months later.
We build hospice and palliative care software that treats these as distinct service lines in one system: shared patient records and referral pipelines, service line specific documentation and billing paths, and transition workflows that carry the full clinical picture forward when a palliative patient elects the hospice benefit. One record, one login for staff who work across both programs, and reporting that shows each line's performance separately. For healthtech companies building products in this space, our healthcare SaaS development team builds multi tenant platforms designed for agency buyers from day one.
AI in Hospice Software
Documentation burden is the quiet crisis of hospice staffing: nurses finishing charts at kitchen tables hours after their last visit. AI capabilities, built inside a HIPAA compliant architecture with human review where clinical judgment is involved, are the most direct relief available. Our AI development team builds these capabilities where they produce measurable outcomes.
- Ambient documentation and note summarization that turns a recorded visit into a structured draft note for clinician review, cutting after hours charting instead of adding another screen to fill in.
- Decline and transition prediction models trained on your own visit and assessment data, flagging patients whose trajectory suggests a level of care review so changes happen proactively rather than in crisis.
- IDG preparation assistance that summarizes each patient's period since the last review, so the meeting starts from a synthesis instead of a chart dig.
- Scheduling optimization that balances continuity, geography, and visit frequency orders across the field team.
- Claim and NOE error detection that catches billing problems while they are still cheap to fix, before they become denials and payment gaps.
Integrations and Interoperability
Hospice software earns its keep by talking to everything around it. A platform that requires duplicate data entry is a platform your field staff will quietly abandon.
Systems We Integrate With
- Referral sources and hospital EHRs including Epic, Oracle Health (Cerner), and athenahealth, plus custom EHR systems we build ourselves.
- Pharmacy benefit managers and e-prescribing networks for medication orders, refills, and comfort kit management.
- Clearinghouses and payers for eligibility, claims, and remittance flows, including Medicare administrative contractors.
- DME and supply vendors so orders, deliveries, and pickups happen inside the workflow rather than by fax.
- CAHPS Hospice survey vendors, accounting systems, payroll platforms, and state EVV aggregators.
Standards We Work In
- HL7 FHIR APIs for modern EHR connectivity and referral data exchange.
- HL7 v2 interfaces for ADT, orders, and results from hospital and facility systems.
- X12 EDI transactions: 837 claims, 835 remittances, 270 and 271 eligibility, 276 and 277 claim status.
- ICD-10 coding with hospice specific edits, and NCPDP standards where pharmacy data flows.
HIPAA Compliance and Hospice Regulatory Expertise
Hospice records carry some of the most sensitive PHI in healthcare: terminal diagnoses, psychosocial assessments, family dynamics, and spiritual care notes, moving across personal devices in patient homes. That is why we treat the HIPAA Security Rule as an input to system architecture rather than a compliance review at the end: encryption of PHI at rest and in transit, role based access mapped to actual job functions, device level safeguards for field hardware, complete audit logging, and business associate agreements across the integration chain.
The hospice regulatory layer sits on top. We design for the Medicare Conditions of Participation, election statements and physician certification timing, HOPE assessment windows, CAHPS Hospice reporting obligations, and the documentation trails that Medicare auditors and surveyors actually ask for. When these requirements are written into the functional specification during discovery, compliance is verified continuously during development instead of discovered as a gap during a survey.
Custom Development vs Hospice Software Companies
The established hospice software companies serve thousands of agencies well, and for many organizations a platform subscription is the right call. Here is the honest decision framework we walk clients through during discovery, before anyone writes a line of code.
| A platform subscription makes sense when | Custom development makes sense when |
|---|---|
| You are a single site agency with standard workflows that mainstream hospice platforms already handle well. | You run multiple service lines or locations and platform limitations force your teams into workarounds, spreadsheets, and duplicate data entry. |
| Per user subscription pricing stays affordable at your census and staff size. | Per user licensing across a growing agency has become a permanent tax that a one time build would retire, with the software as an owned asset. |
| You can adapt your operations to the vendor's workflow without losing staff or referral relationships. | Your differentiator is operational: faster admissions, better referral response times, or a care model the platforms were not designed around. |
| You have no plans to commercialize your technology. | You are a healthtech company building a hospice product, where owning the IP, the roadmap, and the margins is the whole point. |
There is also a middle path we build often: keep your platform EMR and build custom modules around it, a referral CRM, a family portal, an analytics layer, or a billing automation tool that fills the specific gap the platform leaves. The expensive mistake is not choosing either path. It is committing without a documented analysis of your workflows, volumes, and gaps, which is exactly what our discovery phase produces. Explore our full range of custom medical software development services.
Care Operations Projects We Have Delivered
A selection from our case studies where home based care operations, caregiver support, and care team communication were at the center of the build.
HomeCareIQ: Operations Software for Home Care Agencies
Home care agencies managing post discharge patients were buried in paper documentation and manual financial administration. We built a web platform on the .NET stack that combines patient documentation, physician communication, care order management, call log tracking, and automated payroll calculations in one HIPAA compliant system. Administrative overhead dropped and agencies gained the ability to scale operations without scaling back office headcount, the same operational shape a hospice agency platform demands.
Read the HomeCareIQ case studyPath2Caregiving: Custom Caregiver Support Platform
New family caregivers face overwhelm and isolation exactly when the stakes are highest, the same reality hospice bereavement and family support teams manage daily. We built a mobile and web platform that assesses each caregiver's situation and delivers personalized guidance and resources automatically, while giving healthcare professionals tools to provide targeted support through the platform. Automated content delivery replaced manual outreach and reduced caregiver stress and uncertainty.
Read the Path2Caregiving case studyCareUsel: HIPAA Compliant Care Communication App
Health professionals were managing client relationships across fragmented channels with manual outreach and scheduling. We built a web and cross platform mobile application with HIPAA compliant chat, automated communication workflows, broadcast messaging, QR code connection, and a centralized content library. The result centralizes client management and automates personalized communication, the same capability set that keeps hospice families informed between visits.
Read the CareUsel case studyOur Hospice Software Development Process
Fifteen years of healthcare projects have settled us on a process that removes the two biggest risks in custom software: building the wrong thing, and finding out late. It starts with discovery and roadmapping, always.
Discovery and Functional Specification
We map your agency end to end: census and payer mix, referral flow, clinical documentation practices, billing operations, and the systems already in place. The output is a functional specification detailed enough to price the build as a fixed commitment before you sign for development.
Workflow and UX Design
Hospice software is used by nurses in driveways, aides in living rooms, and on call staff at 2 a.m. We design for those moments: fast documentation, offline tolerance, and screens that respect the emotional weight of the setting.
Architecture and Compliance Design
System architecture, data model, integration contracts, and the HIPAA security architecture are designed together, with hospice regulatory requirements, HOPE windows, certification timing, and billing rules, written into the specification rather than discovered mid build.
Development and Integration
Iterative development with working software delivered in short cycles, alongside integration builds for referral sources, pharmacy, clearinghouses, and payroll. You review progress against the specification, not against promises.
Testing With Agency Scenarios
Beyond standard QA, we test with realistic hospice scenarios: late NOEs, level of care changes mid month, benefit period transitions, offline documentation syncing, and the billing edge cases that only show up in real censuses.
Deployment, Training, and Ongoing Support
Phased rollout with parallel running where cash flow risk demands it, training built for field staff rather than office staff, and a support arrangement that keeps the platform current as CMS rules and payer requirements change.
How Much Do Custom Hospice Software Solutions Cost?
Custom hospice software typically ranges from $75,000 for a focused single module to more than $600,000 for an enterprise platform covering the full agency. Where a project lands in that range depends on module scope, integration count, AI capabilities, and whether the platform serves one agency or many as a multi tenant product.
- Single module builds, such as a referral CRM, a family portal, or a billing automation tool that plugs into your existing EMR, generally run $75,000 to $150,000.
- Multi module platforms covering clinical documentation, scheduling, billing, and reporting for a single agency or regional group generally run $150,000 to $400,000.
- Enterprise and multi tenant platforms with full agency coverage, multiple integrations, and AI driven capabilities generally run $400,000 to $600,000 and beyond.
- Plan for ongoing maintenance at roughly 15 to 20 percent of the build cost annually, covering CMS rule changes, payer requirement updates, and integration upkeep.
Here is what makes our numbers different from a typical agency quote: they arrive after discovery, attached to a functional specification you have reviewed. Vague estimates are how software projects end up at twice the quoted price. A documented scope is how they end up on budget.
Request a QuoteWhy Hospice Agencies Are Investing in Software Now
Hospice is growing, competitive, and under more regulatory scrutiny than at any point in its history. Agencies running on paper, spreadsheets, and aging platforms are competing for referrals, staff, and survey results against organizations that have made software an operational advantage.
Medicare beneficiaries received hospice care in 2023, a population that keeps growing as demographics shift toward it.
Medicare spending on hospice care in 2023, reimbursement that flows only to agencies whose documentation and billing operations can withstand scrutiny.
Share of Medicare decedents who used hospice in 2023. More than half of Medicare deaths now involve hospice, and 6,535 providers compete to deliver that care.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is hospice management software?
Hospice management software is the operational system of record for a hospice agency, covering referral intake, admissions, interdisciplinary care planning, point of care clinical documentation, medication management, scheduling, billing, quality reporting, volunteer coordination, and bereavement support. It manages the entire arc from the first referral call through the final bereavement contact with the family, typically 13 months after the patient's death.
What is the difference between hospice EMR software and hospice management software?
Hospice EMR software is the clinical core: patient records, assessments, visit documentation, care plans, and medication management. Hospice management software is the broader operational platform that includes the EMR plus billing, scheduling, CRM, compliance reporting, and back office functions. In practice the terms overlap heavily, and most agencies shopping for either need to evaluate the full operational scope, not just clinical charting.
How much does custom hospice software cost?
Expect $75,000 to $150,000 for a single module such as a referral CRM or family portal, $150,000 to $400,000 for a multi module agency platform, and $400,000 to $600,000 or more for an enterprise or multi tenant system, with annual maintenance around 15 to 20 percent of the build cost. Arkenea provides fixed pricing after a discovery phase produces a functional specification, so the number you approve is based on documented scope rather than assumptions.
How long does hospice software development take?
A focused module typically takes 4 to 6 months from discovery to launch, while a full agency platform generally takes 9 to 18 months, often delivered in phases so high value modules like the referral CRM or billing automation start producing returns before the full build completes. Integration count and data migration from a legacy platform are usually the biggest timeline variables.
What makes hospice billing different from other medical billing?
Hospice billing runs on per diem payments at four levels of care rather than fee for service claims, and it carries rules that exist nowhere else: the Notice of Election that must reach Medicare within 5 days of admission, sequential monthly claims that must be filed in order, service intensity add on payments, benefit period certifications, and an aggregate payment cap tracked across the year. Software that was not built around these rules forces billing teams into manual workarounds that delay cash and invite denials.
Should we build custom software or buy from a hospice software company?
Buy a platform subscription if you are a single site agency with standard workflows that established vendors already serve well. Build custom if platform limitations force your teams into workarounds, if per user fees across a growing organization outrun the cost of owning your software, or if you are a healthtech company that needs to own the product and its roadmap. There is also a middle path: keep your platform EMR and build custom modules, such as a referral CRM or analytics layer, around it. Our discovery phase gives you a documented basis for the decision.
How does Arkenea ensure HIPAA compliance in hospice software?
Compliance is designed into the architecture before development starts: encryption of PHI at rest and in transit, role based access control, device safeguards for field hardware, complete audit logging, and business associate agreements across the integration chain, all mapped to the HHS Security Rule. On top of that we design for the hospice regulatory layer, including the Medicare Conditions of Participation, HOPE assessment timing, and CAHPS Hospice reporting. We have built HIPAA compliant healthcare software exclusively for 15 years.
Can hospice software integrate with EHRs, pharmacies, and clearinghouses?
Yes. We build integrations with hospital and referral source EHRs including Epic, Oracle Health (Cerner), and athenahealth using HL7 v2 and FHIR, pharmacy and e-prescribing networks, clearinghouses and payers through X12 EDI transactions, DME vendors, CAHPS survey vendors, payroll systems, and state EVV aggregators. Integration scope is defined during discovery so interface work is priced and planned from the start.
How is AI used in hospice software?
The highest value uses today are ambient documentation that drafts visit notes for clinician review, decline and transition prediction that flags patients who may need a level of care change, IDG meeting preparation that summarizes each patient's period automatically, scheduling optimization, and billing error detection. Every AI feature we build runs inside a HIPAA compliant architecture with human review wherever clinical judgment is involved.
Who owns the source code and intellectual property?
You do. Every custom hospice platform Arkenea builds is delivered with full source code ownership and IP rights assigned to you. There are no license fees, no per user charges, and no vendor lock in on the software we build for you.
Looking for a partner to build custom hospice software solutions?
Tell us where your agency's operations hurt: documentation burden, billing gaps, referral growth, or a product you want to bring to market. Discovery gives you a specification and a fixed price before you commit.