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Specialized Care

In-Home Hospice Support

Hospice provides the nurse, aide, social worker, chaplain, and equipment. We provide the long hours in between — the overnight presence, the careful repositioning, the predictable respite that lets the family caregiver sleep. We work alongside your hospice team, follow their plan of care exactly, and stay through to the end.

Caregiver in a teal polo sitting at the bedside of an elderly man at home, gently holding his hand in a softly lit bedroom

What Hospice Doesn't Cover

The hours between hospice visits are the longest

The hospice benefit is one of the most compassionate things American healthcare does — and one of the most misunderstood. Hospice provides intermittent visits: a nurse two or three times a week, an aide two to five times a week, a social worker, a chaplain, medical equipment, and the comfort-medication kit. What hospice does not provide is continuous in-home staffing. The 22 hours a day between visits belong to the family.

That gap is what our caregivers fill. We come in, follow the hospice nurse's plan of care to the letter, reposition every two hours, watch for comfort cues, support the family through the slow vigil, and stay through active dying until the funeral home has come and gone.

How We Support

Six ways we walk alongside your hospice team

Every hospice support plan we write is built around what your hospice nurse and the family have decided — never around what we think should happen next.

Working Alongside Hospice — Not Replacing It

Hospice provides the nurse, aide, social worker, chaplain, and medical equipment. We provide the long hours in between, following the hospice plan of care exactly as written — never substituting our judgment for the hospice nurse's.

Comfort Positioning & Skin Integrity

Repositioning every two hours, pillow support at the back and between the knees, careful skin checks, and protecting heels and elbows — small things that matter enormously at the end.

Overnight & Continuous Presence

Hospice nurses visit on schedule; the rest of the day and night belongs to whoever can sit beside the bed. We staff overnights, multi-shift 24-hour rotations, and live-in coverage so the family never sits alone unless they choose to.

Respite for Adult Children & Spouses

End-of-life vigils stretch days and weeks. We provide predictable respite blocks so the family caregiver can sleep, see a doctor, or just step outside without the house holding its breath.

Emotional Presence Without Performance

We don't fill the silence. We don't say the wrong thing because we're afraid of the quiet. We sit, we listen, we hold a hand if invited, and we let the family lead.

Spiritual & Cultural Practice Support

Whether the family wants music, prayer, scripture read aloud, candles lit, or absolute silence — we follow the family's cultural and spiritual lead, and we coordinate with the hospice chaplain on request.

A Typical Vigil

What a hospice shift looks like

  1. Arrival — handoff from the family or prior shift, review of the hospice nurse's last note, check on comfort medications.
  2. Every two hours — repositioning with pillow support, gentle mouth care with the swab the hospice aide left, careful skin check.
  3. Throughout — quiet presence, music or scripture or silence per the family's wish, careful observation of breathing and comfort cues to share with hospice.
  4. Family respite — predictable four-hour blocks where the family caregiver can sleep, leave the house, or simply step into another room.
  5. If active dying begins — we stay, call hospice immediately, support the family with whatever they need, and remain present until the funeral home has come.

Our Standard

Held to the 12-Mile Care Standard

Every hospice support caregiver is held to the 12-Mile Care Standard. Skills are verified in real time by a Registered Nurse before the first shift — including comfort repositioning, mouth care, careful handling of fragile skin, and the discipline of working under a hospice plan of care without substituting our own judgment.

The 12-Mile Care Standard

What it costs

Hospice support pricing in Southeast Michigan

Hospice support typically falls within the Personal Care range area home care agencies typically charge, averaging $31 - $36/hr. For continuous overnight or 24-hour coverage, most hospice families use live-in care at $400 - $500/day. Hospice itself does not pay for continuous personal-care staffing — long-term care insurance, VA Aid & Attendance, and private pay are the most common sources.

FAQ

Hospice Support — Frequently Asked Questions

Hospice provides intermittent visits from a nurse, aide, social worker, and chaplain — typically a few visits per week. They don't provide continuous in-home staffing. Our caregivers fill the long hours between hospice visits: bathing, repositioning, meals, supervision, family respite, and the simple presence of someone in the room. We work alongside hospice and follow their plan of care exactly.
Our caregivers do not administer hospice comfort medications independently. When the hospice nurse has pre-drawn liquid morphine (or similar comfort medications) into marked syringes with a written dosing schedule, and the client is still able to use their hands, our caregivers can provide hand-over-hand assistance — guiding the client's own hand to self-administer on the schedule the hospice nurse set. We follow that schedule exactly, document each dose, and never adjust dosing or decide independently when a dose is needed. Drawing the medication and any change to the schedule remain the responsibility of the hospice nurse and family.
Yes. Most families need overnight or 24-hour coverage as hospice progresses — particularly the active dying phase. We offer hourly overnights, multi-shift 24-hour rotations, and live-in care depending on the home setup. 24-hour hourly coverage is billed at $31 - $36/hr; live-in is $400 - $500/day.
Yes. Our caregivers stay through active dying, support the family with comfort positioning and mouth care, and remain present until the hospice nurse arrives after death is pronounced. The shift does not end because death has happened. We stay until the family is ready and the funeral home has come.
Hospice support care typically falls within the Personal Care range area home care agencies typically charge, averaging $31 - $36/hr. For continuous coverage, most families use live-in care at $400 - $500/day. See our paying for home care guide.
Most families have a caregiver in the home within 12-48 hours of the first call. We coordinate directly with the hospice agency so the plan of care, equipment, and comfort medications are aligned from the first shift. Contact us to start.